A high-interest venture for the early-reader audience.
Sand, sun, and surf provide a jovial backdrop to ninja Moby Shinobi’s latest adventures, presented here in this graphic format after five more-conventional early-reader outings.
Moby’s sidekick dog “Toby wants to play in the sun. / A beach visit would be fun!” Ninja Moby indulges Toby’s request, packing both beach and ninja items before setting out for the “Beach Bash!” Simple rhyming couplets and plenty of action follow as each brief chapter showcases a new problem for Moby. In “Sun and Sand,” his friends ask for assistance to place the final flag atop their impressive competitive sand castle only to be sabotaged by a snappy crab. In “Catch of the Day,” a fisherman on a pier recruits Moby to pull in a catch only to be entangled in lines and confusion. Moby later goes “To the Rescue” of a mariner whose sailboat is sinking. Following suit from previous books, Moby often creates a comical catastrophe before ushering in a creative solution. Bold illustrations layered with bright colors and textures are combined with oversized cartoon facial features. The combo heightens the lively plot, especially during the monosyllabic action sequences in each vignette: “TWIRL! / TOSS! / BOINK! / PLOP!” Light-skinned Moby may be equipped with and dressed in ninjutsu attire, but diversity is shown with a single brown-skinned friend and other background characters.
A high-interest venture for the early-reader audience. (Graphic early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-54752-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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 light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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