While silliness rules here, the simple vocabulary, offbeat rhyme scheme, and laughworthy images should have lap readers...
A debut picture book explores some of the myriad things that dogs don’t do.
Dogs don’t attend school or prepare their own taxes; they don’t high-five, drive, or perform gymnastics. Drenth posits a number of actions readers should know dogs don’t do, sometimes interrupting the list with things they actually do (learn, enjoy car rides, etc.). The amusing images depict the ridiculousness of what a dog might look like indulging in noncanine activities. Debut illustrator Vazquez takes each of the ideas to its funniest extreme: A floppy-eared gray terrier takes a coffee break among office cubicles, a greyhound sprays his athlete’s foot in a locker room, and a pooch wearing the name tag Buck (featuring a star) works as a cashier at a coffee shop. The majority of the activities are humanized, with dogs in costumes, but a corgi who doesn’t pick up his poop is depicted in gleeful, doggy glory while his African-American owner looks sadly at the pile he must collect. The most important thing dogs do (featured in a spread full of assorted canines and their diverse humans)? Love and “be / your loyal friend / FOREVER WITHOUT END.” Drenth’s solid rhymes often feature uneven beats, which might throw off adults reading the text-light book aloud to young children. But he also gives the rhyme scheme an intriguing syncopation for repeated reads.
While silliness rules here, the simple vocabulary, offbeat rhyme scheme, and laughworthy images should have lap readers requesting this canine tale again and again.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-880760-71-0
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Sunnyscene LLC
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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