Both this title and its companion are good for reinforcing word families and building reading confidence, but sometimes a...
Bolger and Hodson explore phonics in cartoon form.
New readers encountering the opening sequence—“Cave Bear / Wave Bear // Lazy Bear / Crazy Bear”—will hardly be aware that they are supposed to be learning basic phonics because they will be giggling over the “wave” bear in surf shorts and the “crazy” bear with scissors cutting down the “lazy” bear’s hammock. On subsequent pages, the “crazy” bear, wearing an easy-to-see red-and-white–striped shirt as well as an offensively vapid smile, wreaks mild havoc. From the opening long A, each vowel is explored in subsequent chapters with occasional glosses from Gran, a bespectacled human grandmother who explains phonics rules in speech bubbles: “Long vowels say their own names.” Some of the vocabulary is quite challenging (“creature,” “relief,” “fuel”), adding an unexpected level of difficulty. Companion title Gran on a Fan uses rhyme to make its point with short vowels, but some of the choices (“bomb,” “mob,” “rob,” “cops”) take this book for emergent readers to some dark places that slapstick visual humor cannot save.
Both this title and its companion are good for reinforcing word families and building reading confidence, but sometimes a phonics book is just a phonics book . (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-228598-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
An uneven U.S. debut for Atak, easy peasy for fans of the I Spy genre. (Picture book. 6-8)
Role reversals rule in this (mostly) wordless import.
From the title page, which depicts the head of a child/man (depending on orientation), on, a veteran German illustrator offers even not very attentive viewers a succession of silly switches. Penguins and polar bears share space with owls and moose, among others, in a stylized jungle scene; a rabbit aims a blunderbuss at a frightened hunter; firefighters battle a fountain with flame-spurting hoses; a giant lad takes his tiny parents out for a walk—and that’s not all. Though he paints in a crude style that suits the obvious, easy-to-spot swaps, one scene crowded with small cartoon and comic-book figures from Bart Simpson and Darth Vader to Batman—all with switched heads— adds a dollop of sly humor. The aforementioned gun, an Indian with a feathered headdress, a glimpse of nude swimmers behind a man retrieving a stick for his canine owner and other such “sophistications” are less clever than off-kilter, though. So too is the thoroughly dispensable nonsense rhyme (“I found it quite funny, / Until a snow bunny / Ate all of my paper / —’Twas quite a caper!”) opposite the title page.
An uneven U.S. debut for Atak, easy peasy for fans of the I Spy genre. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-909263-04-8
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
Those kids ready to wrap their heads around musk ox’s anarchic approach, though, will likely find their (singular) stomachs...
More crazy hijinks from the irrepressible musk ox and his sidekick control-freak zebra will engender belly laughs in Cabatingan and Myers’ highly original sequel to the wild and wacky alphabet book A Is for Musk Ox (2012).
Zebra’s efforts to establish traditional counting-book order are foiled right from the first page as the musk ox is seen disappearing from his prescribed position as “1 musk ox.” Things only gets more zany on 2, where he is pictured consorting with two fetching female yaks, thereby ruining the concept of 2 by inserting himself as a third animal. By 4, he is again hijacking poor zebra’s concept, scaring away the 4 birds and replacing them with the less-attractive 4 stomachs (“just like cows”). More ridiculous scenarios bedevil the animals’ futile attempt to complete the counting series. Six snails have been eaten by the four birds that the musk ox scared away; 10 dogs run away, leaving zebra and musk ox using their eight legs plus two heads to make up the number. This approach is deliberately challenging and will only work for children who are already completely comfortable with counting; those who are not will likely find this terminally confusing.
Those kids ready to wrap their heads around musk ox’s anarchic approach, though, will likely find their (singular) stomachs sore from laughing. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59643-798-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
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