A song about sharing that’s sure to lift readers’ spirits as well.
A people-watching yellow warbler finds a friend who shares his passion for noticing things.
Maclear chronicles Warble’s increasing frustration as fog blankets his ice-covered island, a “special place” once full of tourists. He can no longer watch the humans who visit his territory, and worse, his neighbors don’t seem to notice or care about the changes. Sadly, he almost forgets the passion of his earlier life until he spots No. 673, a juvenile “Red-Hooded Spectacled Female,” and she becomes a friend. Together they make origami boats and send them out to sea with messages to others beyond his island. Gradually the fog lifts. Pak’s digitally worked pencil-and-watercolor illustrations support and enhance this simple parable, especially in a wordless center spread showing Warble and the girl, who appears to be Asian, staring at each other through binoculars. Humor is to be found in the extensive human identifications that grace the endpapers and early pages of Warble’s story, a nod to the habits of bird-watchers like the author. Pastel wash represents the fog that “turned everything ghostly.” Their surroundings are gray. But as the fog begins to lift, “Big things. / And tiny things / Shiny red things. / And soft feathery things” reappear. Reaching out lifts both fog and spirits; it brightens days and nights.
A song about sharing that’s sure to lift readers’ spirits as well. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77049-492-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2017
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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
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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