Read the book for its gleeful energy, but have one with antipodean animal descriptions on hand to answer questions.
There are so many things these colorful birds can do. Can you?
Each two-page spread is a riot of color, depicting several iterations of Toucan in motion as well as various other fauna and flora that he encounters and engages in mischief with. A score of little birds in rainbow colors watches him dance and sing and bang a frying pan. Toucan also slides and swings and does the cancan (on a stack of cans). He also skips and trips and flips and flops. When an excited kangaroo shows up, with an even more excited joey in her pouch, Toucan is challenged to imitate kangaroo’s kung fu moves. Other wackily drawn creatures appear to dance and party with Toucan. There’s Ewan, an unidentified big-eyed burnt-orange animal with a striped tail who might be a kinkajou, and his imperious aunts Shanti and Tanya. There’s a panda, salamander, goose and gander, and also a panther...or two. The pages are positively crowded with creatures who all dance in a vivid tangle with Toucan. And who else can dance with Toucan? You can. MacIver’s simple text has lots of bounce and phonic crunch. Davis’ illustrations, besides being colorful, effectively communicate motion and fun. American audiences may miss descriptions of the exotic animals depicted; this New Zealand import has no backmatter.
Read the book for its gleeful energy, but have one with antipodean animal descriptions on hand to answer questions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-8774-6753-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Gecko Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Check out these soporific sheep.
When a little girl has trouble falling asleep, she tries the age-old remedy of counting sheep in this wild and woolly bedtime countdown.
The young narrator announces: “Last night I lay in bed / and found I couldn’t sleep. / So I scrunched my eyes up tightly / and counted woolly sheep.” Her countdown commences with 10 sheep leaping over a clothesline until one lands in a pair of undies, reducing the herd to nine. But as the remaining nine sheep glide on skateboards, one rolls away, leaving eight. Another vanishes in a cloud; another falls into a lion’s cage; another sheep swings too high while disco dancing; another skids on a bar of soap; another loses balance surfing…. Finally, there’s one survivor, who gives up and falls asleep. The repetitive, lilting cadence of the rhyming text alone should lull wee readers to sleep, while the hilarious mishaps of the dwindling sheep will surely provoke bedtime chuckles. Bold illustrations in neon yellows, reds, blues and greens rely on spiky, simple lines and shapes to showcase the dramatic, highly charged, almost surreal antics of these accident-prone sheep as they leap, skate, prance, balance, dance, glide, surf, float, trot and finally sleep across the double-page spreads.
Check out these soporific sheep. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: July 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61608-660-2
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
Even children who, like William, are "switched on like a light" when bedtime rolls around will drift off as the "train that goes to tomorrow" fills up with drowsy travelers: "Teachers and jugglers, sacks, cats, and packages, piglets in baskets and babies in bundles." William's fellow passengers have exaggeratedly wide middles and tiny extremities, as if viewed in a funhouse mirror, but the distortion is more comic than eerie, and suits the illustrations' curves and slanting perspectives to a "Z." Each car features a different arrangement of picture and words: sometimes text runs around the outside, sometimes it separates two-thirds from the rest, occasionally it rests on top of the illustration, and once it is even in the smoke of the train in a full-bleed spread. The train starts up at last; William cuddles close to his mother, listening to her heart and closing his wide eyes. Here they are flanked by a swooping train on the track, as the seat becomes a pasture. The engineer in his nightgown and stocking cap stands at the throttle as the train is "filling the world with billows of steam, soft see-through clouds that turn into dreams." Then suddenly it's coming into the station beneath a rising sun. A truly memorable ride, this ticket to dreamland will be good for many repeated trips. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 21, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-38437-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
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