Long presents a fairly charming, old family cure for the hiccups. Perhaps “cure” is too strong a word, but the medicine is a lot of fun. A little girl is caught in the grips of the hiccups. Her Grandma gives her a scrap of doggerel that is known to give hiccups their walking papers: "Hiccup snickup / Rear right straight up. / Three drops in the teacup / Will cure the hiccups." Say it fast three times, she advises. But before she can get even one fluid rendering out, other members of her family chime in with their home remedies. Mama recommends putting a paper bag over her head while she eats an apple. Her sister suggests drinking from the wrong side of a cup. One brother scares the daylights out of her, though not her hiccups, while another tells her to hold her breath and stand on her head. The little girl is doing these cumulatively: "So there I was, scared to death, in a wet shirt, wearing a paper bag and eating an apple, while standing on my head, holding my breath and saying, Hiccup snickup / Right rear straight up. / Three drops in the teacup / Will cure the hiccups." Then it's all together now: father says to close your eyes, mother says to take a deep breath, brother one to turn her head sideways, brother two to stick a finger in her ear, and her sister tells her to hold her tongue. Grandma cuts through the nonsense. Just say the verse three times fast, and giggles come to save the day, at least for the little girl. Wickstrom's decidedly cockamamie characters, pop-eyed and slightly frantic, work wonders with the text, yet even still the real magic of this book comes in a read-aloud. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82245-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Steadfast and quietly amusing, Shaina is a girl to admire.
When Shaina discovers an unusual hen sporting “emerald green feathers with golden speckles,” she strives to find its rightful owner.
Although her hungry family wants to make chicken soup, Shaina insists they restore the newfound hen to Izzy Pippik, who has left town. By the time he returns, the hen has given birth to a multiplying flock of chickens. The chickens have overrun the town, and people are mad, but then the merchants realize that the freely ranging chickens have brought prosperity back because everyone wants to visit. Shaina is overjoyed when Pippik shows up. She tries to return Yevka, the original hen, and the whole flock, but Izzy matches her honesty with his generosity by allowing all to stay. Shocked, Shaina tells him he can’t. “If they’re mine to have,” he says, “they’re mine to give,” and the poverty-stricken townspeople have been saved by an upright girl and an altruistic gentleman. Retro, droll pencil illustrations colored in Photoshop show a European town in the 1930s. Shaina and Yevka echo each other as they walk along, with red bow and comb, black braid and tail feather bouncing in the breeze, green-and-white pinafore dress and feathers. Although no specific sources are stated, the author/storyteller has drawn upon Talmudic and Islamic folklore.
Steadfast and quietly amusing, Shaina is a girl to admire. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55453-243-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An early chapter book with a pleasantly recognizable cast of characters that, disappointingly, misses the opportunity to...
Daisy, a collector of admirable words, wants to find the perfect word to give her teacher as a gift.
An early-grade primary-school student, Daisy has lots of favorite words she collects in her notebook. After the children find out their gentle teacher is getting married, they all want to bring her gifts. Daisy’s pleasure in her search, though, is complicated by Samantha, her next-door neighbor and classmate she finds annoying. An otherwise congenial child, Daisy does whatever she can to avoid Samantha—including cutting through shrubbery to meet her friend Emma and pulling up her hood and singing as she hurries by Samantha’s house. All of this carefully planned avoidance of Samantha seems to be leading up to Daisy's recognition of her own subtle bullying and perhaps her selection of a perfect word like “friend” that represents this understanding. Instead, her frequently depicted problems with Samantha are never directly addressed. The perfect word Daisy finally chooses, “giggle,” does elicit a pleasing compliment from Samantha that may hint at an improvement in their relationship. Simple, charming illustrations appear on almost every spread; pages feature wide spacing and limited text, an inviting presentation for very young independent readers.
An early chapter book with a pleasantly recognizable cast of characters that, disappointingly, misses the opportunity to gently address a pertinent issue. (Fiction. 5-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55453-645-0
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
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