Loopy but fun.
Captain Pug (2017) found he wasn’t the best sailor. Maybe he’ll have more luck as a cowboy!
Young Lady Miranda is out in the garden at No. 10. The Crescent with her pug dog, Pug, and her stick horse, Pony, chasing away bandits (pigeons) when Pony suffers an injury (his stick breaks). Running Footman Will and Running Footman Liam and Wendy the housekeeper come to help. Lady Miranda decides she needs a new horse, and Running Footman Will and Running Footman Liam carry her in the sedan chair to do some horse trading. At the stable they meet Frank, a “real-life cowboy,” the magic-trick–obsessed son of the stable owner. Lady Miranda and Cowboy Pug test-ride Horsey, Frank’s old horse, and find themselves in the back of Frank’s father’s trailer headed for the Little Witherington County Fair. Frank and the Running Footmen set off in pursuit…but their pursuit catches the attention of Maud, a new police officer on patrol. When real-life cattle rustlers get involved and a runaway bull rampages through the fair, whatever will happen? James’ second chapter-book adventure starring Pug is another fun read, juxtaposing highly unlikely elements (livery-clad footman and a sedan chair!) against a modern English setting. Ceulemans’ three-color, cartoon line drawings of the little lady and her lazy pug reveal that the primary cast is white, though the England they inhabit is realistically diverse.
Loopy but fun. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68119-824-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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