With only the barest suggestion of a narrative—exploring implied settings from morning to night—and no compelling character...
Creator of the Follow the Line series, Ljungkvist here trains her digital tool kit on the seek-and-find format.
The opening is a colorful compendium of shapes that fill the double-page spread from top to bottom; hundreds of empty windows decorate the preponderance of rectangles in this “big city.” Readers are challenged to find 10 miniature cats. Then come the dogs (many collaged), followed by horses in a pasture, chickens on a farm, and so on. Several scenes look like mid-20th-century Formica-countertop designs, with outlines of overlapping animals layered on silhouettes of others. The “farm” is actually a solid yellow background. Single-color pages with instructions are interspersed between the busy scenes, offering a visual break. The text serves primarily to direct: “In a big field outside / the city, all the horses are / grazing in the pasture. / SEARCH and SPOT / 7 blue horses, / 6 that are brown, / 8 pink horses, / and 4 that are orange.” Although children love to search for hidden objects, it may be only the most obsessive that continue to the end. Many will tire of the repetitive patterns, some with hundreds of similar-looking creatures.
With only the barest suggestion of a narrative—exploring implied settings from morning to night—and no compelling character to relate to, it is likely that this book will compel children who are not serious puzzle aficionados to search for something else . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-54005-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
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
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
