Winters’ Pete and Gabby are back, this time largely avoiding detection while they roam through an elementary school.
The empty campground is again the spark for their adventure. As they explore, they come across a large red building and buses unloading kids. “Kids go here!” says Pete. “This place must be fun!” In the same odd semi-anthropomorphism that plagued their first title, the two bears act human—paws over their hearts for the waving flag, hiding to avoid getting caught in the music room, painting paw prints all over the art-room walls, climbing the rock wall in the gym—but at the same time, they scare the lunch ladies (but not the kids) who eventually spy them and require the ranger to come out and arrange to take them back to the park (after petting their heads) in the back of a police cruiser, no tranquilizers required. They also feel sorry for the caged animals in the science room, setting them all free. Kirkland’s watercolors show Gabby with a mouse on her nose and another running down her back, while Pete lies on his back on the floor, a bunny on his belly and a parakeet on his nose. Very unbearlike.
No doubt the bears are adorable, and those just starting school may appreciate a new perspective on the going-to-school theme, but, especially in areas where there are real bears roaming the countryside, the mixed message is troubling. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8075-0592-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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Hee haw.
45
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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. 29, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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The goose is all that’s serious here…and that not for long.
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Bet you can’t make this goose smile, no matter how hard you try.
TV personality Kimmel’s first foray into picture books presents a feathered grump with a scowl that is proof against any kind of foolery: Try putting a chicken on her head, dressing her as a moose, or even trucking in a snail pizza—this goose won’t crack. Breaking now and again into verse, he challenges readers to give it a try in a foil mirror: “Cluck like a chicken / moo like a cow / be doofy, be goofy / any way you know how”—and sure enough, eventually a grin bursts out to replace the grimace despite a multipage struggle to hold it in, and off prances the goose in a pair of (gender-bending) tighty whities. Yes, she’s become “a SILLY goose (thanks to you),” the narrator proclaims, and what’s more, “YOU are a silly kid.” A hand-lettered narrative in block printing big enough to take up most of the space accompanies thick-lined cartoon views of a goosey glare that dares readers to crank up the volume, and the last page turn reveals a final tweak that may add a few grown-up voices to the younger chorus of giggles.
The goose is all that’s serious here…and that not for long. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-70775-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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