by Julie Murphy ; illustrated by Hannah Tolson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2017
A quick hop, skip, and jump over the topic, adequate for first impressions but a large step behind Ingo Arndt’s Best Foot...
A gamboling gallery of animal feet in action.
Tolson’s cheery paint-and–cut-paper views of smiling animals on the move carry a light but, considering the thundering herd of similar surveys available, unexceptional load. They illustrate a survey of how animal feet are adapted to run, jump, climb, swim, dig, grip, kick, keep eggs warm, and—in the case of the male blue-footed booby—attract the ladies. Readers will come away with a solid grasp of the notion that there are different sorts of feet, but it’s misleading to claim that “CHEETAH feet never slip,” and as Murphy sticks to vertebrates for her 13 examples, the “feet” of snails and insects go unnoted. Moreover, she skips past adaptive differences in bone structure or other internal anatomy, nor does she offer print or online leads for young investigators who might want a leg up on, for instance, the three basic types of mammalian foot.
A quick hop, skip, and jump over the topic, adequate for first impressions but a large step behind Ingo Arndt’s Best Foot Forward (2013). (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68152-195-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amicus Ink
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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by Craig Smith ; illustrated by Katz Cowley ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2010
Hee haw.
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The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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by Elise Gravel ; illustrated by Elise Gravel ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 5, 2016
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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