This one’s playfulness invites repeat readings, and like Mr. Postmouse, it delivers consistently.
The dedicated postal worker who first appeared in Mr. Postmouse’s Rounds (2015) returns with his entire family for a much bigger adventure.
It’s time for the family to go on vacation, but if Mr. Postmouse’s local deliveries are any indication, it won’t be a lazy day at the beach. In fact, Mr. Postmouse, Mrs. Postmouse, and their three little mice travel the world, going from campsite to ocean cruise to desert oasis to city. In each location, Dubuc’s double-page spreads show cross sections of animals’ house interiors: there is a sloth’s treetop dwelling, a dragon’s volcano lair, and even a lizard’s cozy home inside a cactus. They’re rendered in careful, cute detail. It feels like a busy critter cast of thousands, making every page one to be examined for minutes at a time. A lot of the text, which serves mostly to explain each setting and move the family along, is perfunctory (“And then it’s a quick city stop!”). It’s the playful, witty worldbuilding drawings that do the heavy lifting and tell dozens of individual stories. By the time the Postmouses take to the skies in a hot air balloon, readers could be forgiven for being as exhausted as the family of mice, ready to return home. And that they do, having apparently brought home a penguin in a suitcase and lots of memories from around the world.
This one’s playfulness invites repeat readings, and like Mr. Postmouse, it delivers consistently. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77138-354-7
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
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.
