Clucky lays a rotten egg.
Will someone in the farmyard become a star when Howard the owl talent scout makes his visit?
The animals on the farm are all aflutter. “Howard is world famous for seeking near and far, / Discovering new talents and making them big stars.” No stranger to TV himself, he’s discovered a bunny magician and a roller-skating panda who plays the flute. In Clucky’s farmyard, Mona the goat is attempting to sing; George the horse is practicing his dancing; and Bert the turkey “is dressed up as old King Lear.” Even Clucky’s chicks practice their juggling with grapefruit. When Howard arrives in his limo, he steps out—only to trip on a stray grapefruit. Everyone wants to blame the chicks, who flee. Clucky takes the fall and says she was making juice. She cleans Howard up, then gives him an heirloom magnifying glass. Surprisingly, he decides he has found his star in Clucky, saying, “Today has been a special day, / my dear hen, now I know. / I’ve learned that it’s within our / hearts where all new talents grow.” Originally published in Spain, Pavón’s story is as weak on logic as Clucky is on any demonstrated talent. Carretero’s busy, often confusingly composed illustrations, full of goggle-eyed animals with strangely outsized noses, don’t help, nor does the forced verse in Brokenbrow’s translation.
Clucky lays a rotten egg. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-84-18302-02-2
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Cuento de Luz
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back.
Little Nutbrown Hare ventures out into the wide world and comes back with a new companion in this sequel to Guess How Much I Love You (1994).
Big Nutbrown Hare is too busy, so after asking permission, Little Nutbrown Hare scampers off over the rolling meadow to play by himself. After discovering that neither his shadow nor his reflection make satisfactory playmates (“You’re only another me!”), Little Nutbrown comes to Cloudy Mountain…and meets “Someone real!” It’s a white bunny who introduces herself as Tipps. But a wonderful round of digging and building and chasing about reaches an unexpected end with a game of hide-and-seek, because both hares hide! After waiting a long time to be found, Little Nutbrown Hare hops on home in disappointment, wondering whether he’ll ever see Tipps again. As it turns out, it doesn’t take long to find out, since she has followed him. “Now, where on earth did she come from?” wonders Big Nutbrown. “Her name is Tipps,” Little Nutbrown proudly replies, “and she’s my friend.” Jeram’s spacious, pale-toned, naturalistic outdoor scenes create a properly idyllic setting for this cozy development in a tender child-caregiver relationship—which hasn’t lost a bit of its appealing intimacy in the more than 25 years since its first appearance. As in the first, Big Nutbrown Hare is ungendered, facilitating pleasingly flexible readings.
Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1747-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat.
Dinos that love to move and groove get children counting from one to 10—and perhaps moving to the beat.
Beginning with a solo bop by a female dino (she has eyelashes, doncha know), the dinosaur dance party begins. Each turn of the page adds another dino and a change in the dance genre: waltz, country line dancing, disco, limbo, square dancing, hip-hop, and swing. As the party would be incomplete without the moonwalk, the T. Rex does the honors…and once they are beyond their initial panic at his appearance, the onlookers cheer wildly. The repeated refrain on each spread allows for audience participation, though it doesn’t easily trip off the tongue: “They hear a swish. / What’s this? / One more? / One more dino on the floor.” Some of the prehistoric beasts are easily identifiable—pterodactyl, ankylosaurus, triceratops—but others will be known only to the dino-obsessed; none are identified, other than T-Rex. Packed spreads filled with psychedelically colored dinos sporting blocks of color, stripes, or polka dots (and infectious looks of joy) make identification even more difficult, to say nothing of counting them. Indeed, this fails as a counting primer: there are extra animals (and sometimes a grumpy T-Rex) in the backgrounds, and the next dino to join the party pokes its head into the frame on the page before. Besides all that, most kids won’t get the dance references.
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1598-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
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