by Kate Feiffer & illustrated by Jules Feiffer ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 7, 2009
Opening with then–President-Elect Obama’s acceptance-speech promise to his daughters that they “have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House,” Feiffers daughter and father present a look at the behind-the-scenes shenanigans as all sorts of canine (and feline and rodent and reptilian…) candidates vie for the position. Setting himself up as judge, the “oldest Basset hound in Mississippi” devises a series of inconclusive tests and exposes a cheating mastiff before a large bulldog declares that “ancient custom dictates that a true presidential puppy must have two rings around one paw, a heart on its face, an eye that winks, and a tail that tells time.” This hugely arbitrary anticlimax leads to two puppies and one guinea pig, who, combined, display all the bulldog’s listed attributes, venturing to the White House—just in time for another anticlimax: Sasha and Malia already have a puppy, presumably the only one who didn’t try out. But they all play happily ever after. Except for one fabulous image of the Basset in mid-howl, this is forgettable. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 7, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-9147-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
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by Doreen Cronin & illustrated by Harry Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2005
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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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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