Saucy hilarity and clever visual characterization make this wide-audience treat delectable until the potentially off-putting final page. A laptop-toting jackass is baffled by a monkey’s unrecognizable possession. “What do you have there?” “It’s a book.” “How do you scroll down?” “I don’t. I turn the page. It’s a book.” The answer to “Where’s your mouse?” is universally comical—a live mouse cheekily appears from under monkey’s hat. Despite advanced vocabulary (wi-fi; tweet), the refrain and pacing hit the sweet spot for preschoolers, while a Treasure Island passage reduced to AIM-speak will have middle schoolers and adults in stitches. Spongey-textured colors inhabit thick, sketchy outlines; composition is lively, facial expressions understatedly sharp. When the tech-savvy ass finally succumbs to the book’s charms but still wants to “charge it up” like a computer, the mouse snarks, “You don’t have to… / it’s a book, Jackass.” Despite Smith’s sly title-page introduction of “jackass” as a legitimate animal label for donkey, this closing gibe refocuses and cheapens the humor into a gratuitous insult that yields no benefit beyond a feeling of superiority. (Picture book. 4-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59643-606-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A multicultural title with obvious appeal for animal-loving middle graders.
When a Bengali boy finds and saves a tiger cub from a man who wants to sell her on the black market, he realizes that the schoolwork he resents could lead to a career protecting his beloved Sunderbans island home.
When the not-yet-weaned cub escapes from a nearby reserve, Neel and many of his neighbors join the search. But some are in the pay of greedy Gupta, a shady entrepreneur who’s recently settled in their community. Even Neel’s father is tempted by Gupta’s money, although he knows that Gupta doesn’t plan to take the cub back to the refuge. Neel and his sister use the boy’s extensive knowledge of the island’s swampy interior to find the cub’s hiding place and lure it out so it can be returned to its mother. The Kolkota-born author visited the remote Sunderbans in the course of her research. She lovingly depicts this beautiful tropical forest in the context of Neel’s efforts to find the cub and his reluctance to leave his familiar world. While the conflicts resolve a bit too easily, the sense of place is strong and the tiger cub’s rescue very satisfying. Pastel illustrations will help readers envision the story.
A multicultural title with obvious appeal for animal-loving middle graders. (author's note, organizations, glossary) (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: April 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-58089-660-3
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
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