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BUDDY AND EARL

From the Buddy and Earl series

Earl and Buddy know the secret of camaraderie and play it out in fine form. (Picture book. 4-7)

Two creatures find an unlikely friendship when one takes on the role of gagman and the other an unwitting straight man.

It’s raining, and Buddy is bored. Buddy is in the living room, and Buddy isn’t allowed to touch pretty much anything there. Buddy is a dog. The daughter of the house enters with a box containing a ball of sharp quills. The girl leaves. Buddy mooches over to get a closer look. Turns out the ball of quills talks. Call him Earl, says the ball of quills. Buddy asks Earl what he is. Earl suggests a race car. Buddy, though no Einstein, thinks not. Giraffe? No. Talking hairbrush? “Buddy was almost positive that Earl was not a talking hairbrush.” Earl suggests they engage in some no-nos, like jumping on the sofa, then on the coffee table. Buddy’s having too much of a blast to demur. Mom enters. Buddy gets a scolding, but Earl sticks up for him, even though Mom doesn’t appear to hear Earl’s defense of Buddy. Buddy does. And that’s how a dog and a hedgehog become friends in this winning series opener. Fergus’ deadpan text and Sookocheff’s simple, flowing artwork work in elemental harmony, elevating the book to a subliminal sophistication that breathes something quite smart into the proceedings.

Earl and Buddy know the secret of camaraderie and play it out in fine form. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-55498-712-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Groundwood

Review Posted Online: June 15, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 21, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016

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TINY T. REX AND THE IMPOSSIBLE HUG

Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back.

With such short arms, how can Tiny T. Rex give a sad friend a hug?

Fleck goes for cute in the simple, minimally detailed illustrations, drawing the diminutive theropod with a chubby turquoise body and little nubs for limbs under a massive, squared-off head. Impelled by the sight of stegosaurian buddy Pointy looking glum, little Tiny sets out to attempt the seemingly impossible, a comforting hug. Having made the rounds seeking advice—the dino’s pea-green dad recommends math; purple, New Age aunt offers cucumber juice (“That is disgusting”); red mom tells him that it’s OK not to be able to hug (“You are tiny, but your heart is big!”), and blue and yellow older sibs suggest practice—Tiny takes up the last as the most immediately useful notion. Unfortunately, the “tree” the little reptile tries to hug turns out to be a pterodactyl’s leg. “Now I am falling,” Tiny notes in the consistently self-referential narrative. “I should not have let go.” Fortunately, Tiny lands on Pointy’s head, and the proclamation that though Rexes’ hugs may be tiny, “I will do my very best because you are my very best friend” proves just the mood-lightening ticket. “Thank you, Tiny. That was the biggest hug ever.” Young audiences always find the “clueless grown-ups” trope a knee-slapper, the overall tone never turns preachy, and Tiny’s instinctive kindness definitely puts him at (gentle) odds with the dinky dino star of Bob Shea’s Dinosaur Vs. series.

Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back. (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: March 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4521-7033-6

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018

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