A veritable feast for word connoisseurs.
Can one literally eat one’s words?
ZigZag, a green-and-yellow crocodilian, loves words so much he actually tastes and feels them while playfully rolling them around in his mouth. Swivel is “slippery and slightly sour”; bulb has “a thick, purple taste.” One day he visits his friends Kit and Kat—anthropomorphic cats—and they all play with tambourines, a word whose juiciness ZigZag loves. Without thinking, he swallows the word’s five vowels; all that remains is “tmbrn.” ZigZag is heartsick to discover that thanks to his voracious appetite, every word in the world now contains only consonants. Subsequent pages hilariously demonstrate what words look like without those vital five letters. ZigZag takes quick action and manages to rescue all the vowels from family and friends—and even readers—and in alphabetical order, too. As ZigZag declares at the end, “What miraculousness!” (Note the vowels.) This cheery story about delighting in words and wordplay will appeal to readers who enjoy increasing their vocabularies and testing the sounds and feel of new terms. In an illuminating author’s note in which she invites children to play with language, Paschkis admits she “loves words.” She incorporates numerous ones in her illustrations, many containing multiple vowels; these gambol gleefully throughout her colorful, lively artwork featuring all-animal characters and intricate patterns. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A veritable feast for word connoisseurs. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781592704026
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Hee haw.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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