Children will love Gracie’s actions and expressions and will eagerly ask for rereads so they can chant along with the...
What’s a cow to do when her family gets a pool and she’s left alone in her sunny field? Debut author Henwood’s and veteran illustrator Lemaire’s hilarious answer is a delightfully fun read-aloud.
Gracie the cow is so hot she can’t even moo. When she hears the construction on the human side of the fence, she’s curious. What are those construction vehicles doing dumping gray sludge into a big hole in the yard? Young readers will figure out what’s happening before the bovine: the farm family is getting their very own swimming pool to cool off in in the wicked heat. While the farm kids do pour water over Gracie, the relief is short, so when she realizes that the pool is a constant source of water, she charges through the fence and lets out a tremendous “MOO!” before doing “a perfect udder flop right into the deep end!” Not only does she get the water in the pool all muddy, she pees in the shallow end, a gross-out detail sure to delight kids. Despite all the family’s coaxing, once Gracie is in the pool, she intends to stay there, and it takes police cars, a water pump truck, and a crane to move her back to her own side of the fence (which gets fixed while she’s being moved). Once again too hot to moo, Gracie languishes on her side of the fence. But then the construction vehicles are back; this time, however, they’re digging a mud wallow for Gracie. While the story is probably fictional, it feels almost as though it could be real, and kids will enjoy imagining a cow doing a very cowlike dive into a human pool, especially given the gleeful expression on Gracie’s face in Lemaire’s illustration. The only quibble is that the humans are not clearly diverse—and there were opportunities to make them so. Henwood repeats the phrase “Hot, hot, hot, too hot to moo” on several pages throughout the story, giving lap readers a chance to join in chorally and take part in the story. The text design also adds a bonus feature as some of the word layout emphasizes the action: two lines ripple in blue cursive as the water is poured into the pool, and when Gracie breaks through the fence, the text cracks at an angle.
Children will love Gracie’s actions and expressions and will eagerly ask for rereads so they can chant along with the too-hot refrain.Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4602-6049-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
For the 90's, a handsome, well-documented collection of stories about nine uniquely American characters. In her intelligent introduction, Osborne explains their genesis ``from various combinations of historical fact, the storytelling of ordinary people, and the imagination of professional writers'' and notes that changing times put a new light on stories deriding various groups (including women and even animals). Thus her intention is to emphasize ``gargantuan physical courage and absurd humor'' and to ``bring out the vulnerable and compassionate side'' despite the stories' ``ineradicable taint of violence.'' Osborne succeeds pretty well in her intention, piecing together stories that make fine introductions to characters like Mose and Stormalong. Her approach suits Johnny Appleseed and John Henry better than it does Davy Crockett battling a panther, but she does manage to put a new slant on Pecos Bill and his bouncing bride without undermining the story (there's no question of a wife's disobedience here; Sue wants to ride Bill's horse as a test of skill). The telling is more polished than lively—Glen Rounds's irrepressible wit (Ol' Paul, the Mighty Logger, 1949) is more fun, but these versions are perfectly acceptable. McCurdy's vigorous wood engravings, tinted with lucid color, contribute a rugged frontier flavor; lively, though a bit formal in style, they suit the text admirably. Each story is introduced by source notes; a story-by-story bibliography provides a good roundup of this popular genre. (Folklore. 6-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-679-80089-1
Page Count: 116
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1991
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