Despite the awkward writing, children will have no beef with King Lion’s inability to wait for the guests.
Someone has snatched the tender roast from the top of King Lion’s meaty birthday “cake,” so chef Tarantula sets out to find the culprit.
To a chorus of “Who is the beef thief?” (reminiscent, to parents and grandparents at least, of the old “Where’s the beef?” meme), Tarantula investigates by intrepidly climbing into the notably unclean mouths of Gorilla, Giraffe and other invited guests. The prose clumsily switches between past and present tense, and Bat’s reply when Tarantula asks permission to look in his mouth—“I’d rather not”—isn’t the only off-kilter line. Still, Tarantula’s loud “Busted!” when he catches King Lion sneaking a further chew gives the ensuing messy party an appropriately emphatic kickoff. Faas illustrates the quest with scribbly, lightly spattered cartoon scenes featuring a small, very untarantulalike spider in a toque and a menagerie of much larger creatures. These are first seen engaged in assembling party dishes of their own, then amicably gathering at an outdoor table to sip aperitifs and chow down.
Despite the awkward writing, children will have no beef with King Lion’s inability to wait for the guests. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-935954-44-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lemniscaat USA
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
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 first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
bookshelf
