Although fans of Scaredy’s hypercontrolled world will eagerly devour each page, this may not be the best title to introduce...
Popular Scaredy Squirrel sports fangs as he beams from the cover of this “Safety Guide for Scaredies.”
Following the format of his previous safety guide (Scaredy Squirrel Prepares for Christmas, 2012), a preface warns that “Halloween is creeping up quickly, and it’s time to gather the courage to face the ghoulish festivities!” Eight brief chapters follow, offering over-the-top advice on decorations, costumes, trick-or-treating, candy and party planning. Of course, “if all else fails…play dead.” The mix of diagrams (how to make it through a haunted house as quickly as possible), charts (scariness factor of costumes), lists (“unscary black items to decorate with” include Black Forest cakes and bowling balls) and step-by-step instructions (how to carve a friendly-faced pumpkin) offer kids new ways of reading information. Good tips (inspecting candy before eating it) and comically bad (play gloomy organ music to slow the tempo of a party) intermingle and are delivered with the same earnest tone by the always-cautious, comically overprepared and endearing squirrel. Watt certainly has hit on a formula that provides readers with a familiar but guaranteed-to-be-hilarious experience.
Although fans of Scaredy’s hypercontrolled world will eagerly devour each page, this may not be the best title to introduce a child to the series; start them with one of his stories instead. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-894786-87-4
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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