Delightful barnyard humor sends the important messages of embracing individual strengths and the power of friendship.
The farmer’s offhand comment creates a crisis for Donkey and the barnyard cats.
Despite his name, Donkey knows he is a cat. After all, Farmer always says, “Goodnight, kitty cats!” before leaving the barn for the night. Donkey licks, pounces, and perches like a cat, but sometimes he feels out of place. When Donkey climbs onto Farmer’s lap one day, she exclaims that he is acting just like a cat. “What if I’m NOT a cat?” Donkey asks the barn’s cats. The logical cats suggest he is a dog, cow, horse, or “a spiffy, strong cat” capable of protecting them. Knowing he doesn’t belong with the cats, Donkey sadly leaves the warm barn for the cold, rainy pasture. Later, he hears “scaredy-cat whimpers.” Racing to defend a kitten from a fox, Donkey instinctively turns and bucks his back legs high into the air. The fox flees. When Donkey and the kitten return to the barn to a “mewed chorus of cheers,” Donkey embraces his true self and reveals his new identity—Don-kitty! Detailed cartoon illustrations vary from scenes spanning double-page spreads to vignettes that result in fast action. Speech-bubble commentary and feline facial expressions help develop the cats’ personalities and make for a warm and funny read. Farmer is light-skinned with blond hair. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Delightful barnyard humor sends the important messages of embracing individual strengths and the power of friendship. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781525305535
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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