Powell-Tuck nails it: it was your fun; now it is your mess. Do the right thing, which is the doorway to more fun.
As reliable as the muezzin’s call are the four words that echo in every child’s ear: pick up this mess!
“I’ve made a mess,” says the cat, not without a hint of pride. The dog is not so sure: “Maybe you should clean it up.” Powell-Tuck’s dog has an innate sense of tidiness, and her cat would be hard-pressed to think of something more boring than cleaning up. The cat tries shoving the mess—a rather gay collage of a mess, as Smythe presents it, much like the remains of a stack of glossy magazines once a hamster is through with them—but the neighbors are not inclined to house the mess, nor are the denizens of the ocean when the cat tries to sink the mess. “And now the mess is soggy,” notes the dog. The cat ponders: “We could hide the mess under my bed…or blow it up…or eat it.” Enough, says the dog. When the vacuum cleaner explodes from excess capacity, cat agrees to just plain pick the stuff up. Which calls for a party. Which results in another mess. The book is a good laugh, but it is also fundamentally provocative: is making a mess worth the consequences? Of course it is.
Powell-Tuck nails it: it was your fun; now it is your mess. Do the right thing, which is the doorway to more fun. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68010-037-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
A sweet reminder that it’s easy to weather a storm with the company and kindness of friends.
Is it a stormy-night scare or a bedtime book? Both!
Little Blue Truck and his good friend Toad are heading home when a storm lets loose. Before long, their familiar, now very nervous barnyard friends (Goat, Hen, Goose, Cow, Duck, and Pig) squeeze into the garage. Blue explains that “clouds bump and tumble in the sky, / but here inside we’re warm and dry, / and all the thirsty plants below / will get a drink to help them grow!” The friends begin to relax. “Duck said, loud as he could quack it, / ‘THUNDER’S JUST A NOISY RACKET!’ ” In the quiet after the storm, the barnyard friends are sleepy, but the garage is not their home. “ ‘Beep!’ said Blue. ‘Just hop inside. / All aboard for the bedtime ride!’ ” Young readers will settle down for their own bedtimes as Blue and Toad drop each friend at home and bid them a good night before returning to the garage and their own beds. “Blue gave one small sleepy ‘Beep.’ / Then Little Blue Truck fell fast asleep.” Joseph’s rich nighttime-blue illustrations (done “in the style of [series co-creator] Jill McElmurry”) highlight the power of the storm and capture the still serenity that follows. Little Blue Truck has been chugging along since 2008, but there seems to be plenty of gas left in the tank.
A sweet reminder that it’s easy to weather a storm with the company and kindness of friends. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-85213-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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BOOK REVIEW
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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BOOK REVIEW
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