A good book for hatching new readers.
A playful porcupine kit ends up having ducklings imprint on him after their mother asks him to sit on her clutch of eggs.
At first it’s not Pip who sits but his mother. While she contentedly reads her book beneath a tree, “Pip goes up. He jumps. He plops. He peeks,” and accompanying vignettes show the little overalls-clad porcupine frolicking across the double-page spread. His activities come to a halt when a rather feckless Mother Duck takes a page from Dr. Seuss’ Mayzie and leaves Pip to sit on her eggs. And, like Horton before him, sit Pip does until the eggs hatch and the ducklings emerge, all calling him Mama. Firmly imprinted on Pip, they initially reject Mother Duck when she returns, until she leads them to the water to swim. At this point, Pip (who does not like water) misses his mother, and her arrival by Pip’s side creates a happy ending for ducks and porcupines alike. Morgan’s accompanying watercolor, gouache, and colored-pencil illustrations provide good support to help emergent readers decode the controlled text, and there’s a good balance of white space on some spreads to give rest to the eyes.
A good book for hatching new readers. (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: April 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3676-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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
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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
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BOOK REVIEW
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