An angry kid wreaks havoc until a father’s restorative embrace brings love and forgiveness to child and community.
Tomato in hand, spite on his face, a young boy pulls his tomato-laden wagon across the front endpapers, straight for a bees’ nest. Readers will delight in the title page’s payoff, as the nest sways from the tomato’s impact and hostile bees pour forth. Through the town they fly with the boy, gauging possible targets: a sailor and his mother, workers, pets, apartment dwellers. All are considered by the clever narrator, who uses nursery rhyme–esque repetition. But then it’s revealed: The boy stung all the targets with his tomatoes! The aggrieved neighbors and bees now chase the child across a map full of tomato-splattered evidence. Acting as a metaphor for the emotional states of the characters, the bees are soon caught and calmed by a beekeeper while the boy is soothed by his father’s warm and loving embrace. The artwork, done with ink, rubber stamps, and digital collage, perfectly enhances the text, balancing its emotional depth with comedic beats. Rarely does a design so fully consider how images tell a story from cover to cover, from the swarm leading the eyes to the ingenious use of shapes, color, patterns, negative space, and framing. Mischief-makers will be captivated by its humor and promise of unconditional love and forgiveness; their caregivers will appreciate the exploration of emotions and possible responses.
A witty, thought-provoking triumph. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-39282-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hee haw.
11
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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. 29, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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A must-have book about the power of one’s voice and the friendships that emerge when you are yourself.
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School-age children encounter and overcome feelings of difference from their peers in the latest picture book from Woodson.
This nonlinear story centers on Angelina, with big curly hair and brown skin, as she begins the school year with a class share-out of summer travels. Text and illustrations effectively work together to convey her feelings of otherness as she reflects on her own summer spent at home: “What good is this / when others were flying,” she ponders while leaning out her city window forlornly watching birds fly past to seemingly faraway places. López’s incorporation of a ruler for a door, table, and tree into the illustrations creatively extends the metaphor of measuring up to others. Three other children—Rigoberto, a recent immigrant from Venezuela; a presumably Korean girl with her “too strange” lunch of kimchi, meat, and rice; and a lonely white boy in what seems to be a suburb—experience more-direct teasing for their outsider status. A bright jewel-toned palette and clever details, including a literal reflection of a better future, reveal hope and pride in spite of the taunting. This reassuring, lyrical book feels like a big hug from a wise aunt as she imparts the wisdom of the world in order to calm trepidatious young children: One of these things is not like the other, and that is actually what makes all the difference.
A must-have book about the power of one’s voice and the friendships that emerge when you are yourself. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-24653-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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