Puns and foolery pitched just right for newly independent readers.
Zemke provides more farmyard huggermugger (George Shannon’s Wise Acres, 2004) to illustrate Degman’s versified tale of animals trying to substitute at sunrise for an absent rooster.
Deciding that he needs a week at the beach to catch up on his sleep, Rooster enlists fellow livestock to crow each morning to wake Farmer McPeeper while he’s gone. But despite the best efforts of Sheep (“Her cock-a-doodle baaaaaaaa / didn’t travel too faaa. / In fact, she made barely a peep”), Cow (“udder disaster!”) and the rest, McPeeper sleeps on. Looking properly popeyed and panicky in the cartoon scenes, the other animals welcome Rooster back at last—only to learn that he’s caught a cold and can barely wheeze. As in her prizewinning light verse for 1 Zany Zoo (illustrated by Colin Jack, 2010), the author displays a gift for rhymes and language that is clever rather than forced. She also skips the obvious (trite) solution of a general hullabaloo and just has Rooster leave a whispered “cock-a-doodle-doo” on McPeeper’s bedside phone—a technology assist that displays pleasing ingenuity. Farmer McPeeper wakes up, feeling like he’s slept for a week…which he has.
Puns and foolery pitched just right for newly independent readers. (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: April 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-939547-07-1
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Creston
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This distinctly gentle, earnest protagonist’s quiet triumphs still resonate.
A little bird yearns for more.
Last seen in Lonely Bird (2023), the titular character—an avian equivalent of a stick figure—resembles nothing so much as a cut-paper drawing living in a world of thick, realistic oil paints. Little wonder that she can’t figure out where she fits in. Perhaps the sky? But the real birds that can fly have wings that seem entirely different from her own. With pencil-sketched dreams of flight dancing in her head, she sets off to research the many ways of taking to the skies. Drawings and experiments lead to a series of tests. Lonely Bird builds a glider, tweaking her designs after a precipitous crash before finally attaining a bit of success. Alas, a downdraft causes her to crash in a spiderweb in a tree, her home below appearing comparatively distant. With her plane now crushed, how will she return? This book contains the very rare instance of a realistic-looking spider proving to be a capable friend and ally at a time of need. Lonely Bird’s final conclusion that “I know exactly where I belong” is heartening, though by no means clear. Her declaration may lead to some thoughtful discussions with young readers about why she feels the way she does. The children who reside in her home present white.
This distinctly gentle, earnest protagonist’s quiet triumphs still resonate. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781536226195
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Laugh-out-loud fun for all.
Hilarious complications ensue when Nanette’s mom gives her the responsibility of buying the family baguette.
She sets out on her errand and encounters lots of distractions along the way as she meets and greets Georgette, Suzette, Bret with his clarinet, Mr. Barnett and his pet, Antoinette. But she remembers her mission and buys the baguette from Juliette the baker. And oh, it is a wonderful large, warm, aromatic hunk of bread, so Nanette takes a taste and another and more—until there is nothing left. Maybe she needs to take a jet to Tibet. But she faces her mother and finds understanding, tenderness, and a surprise twist. Willems is at his outlandish best with line after line of “ettes” and their absurd rhymes, all the while demonstrating a deep knowledge of children’s thought processes. Nanette and the entire cast of characters are bright green frogs with very large round eyes, heavily outlined in black and clad in eccentric clothing and hats. A highly detailed village constructed of cardboard forms the background for Nanette’s adventures. Her every emotion explodes all over the pages in wildly expressive, colorful vignettes and an eye-popping use of emphatic display type. The endpapers follow the fate of the baguette from fresh and whole to chewed and gone. Demands for encores will surely follow.
Laugh-out-loud fun for all. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2286-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
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