The plot doesn’t exactly make sense, but that hardly matters when the pictures show a suburban neighborhood suddenly overrun with humongous dinosaurs.
His mother’s steadfast refusal to let him get a dog only breaks down after a lad visits a yard sale to buy first a huge egg that hatches into a rambunctious baby triceratops and then a “dinosaur horn” that brings a towering T. Rex and more dinos thundering out of the trees. In some of his most finished, sharply detailed illustrations ever, Mayer shows casually dressed human figures and massive, exuberant prehistoric ones—all bearing comically exaggerated expressions—chasing one another through yards and down streets until the lad blows his horn again and the surprised-looking dinos fade away. Cut to a final scene in the pet shop, where boy and wriggly puppy bond as Mom takes her abrupt about face with good grace. The first-person narration runs to just a line or so per page, but it might as well not be there at all, so expressive are the illustrations.
Eye candy for dinosaur fans, with piles of yard-sale goods and other junk on hand that will reward closer looks. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2316-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Did you like this book?
Even more alliterative hanky-panky from the creators of The Wonky Donkey (2010).
Operating on the principle (valid, here) that anything worth doing is worth overdoing, Smith and Cowley give their wildly popular Wonky Donkey a daughter—who, being “cute and small,” was a “dinky donkey”; having “beautiful long eyelashes” she was in consequence a “blinky dinky donkey”; and so on…and on…and on until the cumulative chorus sails past silly and ludicrous to irresistibly hysterical: “She was a stinky funky plinky-plonky winky-tinky,” etc. The repeating “Hee Haw!” chorus hardly suggests what any audience’s escalating response will be. In the illustrations the daughter sports her parent’s big, shiny eyes and winsome grin while posing in a multicolored mohawk next to a rustic boombox (“She was a punky blinky”), painting her hooves pink, crossing her rear legs to signal a need to pee (“winky-tinky inky-pinky”), demonstrating her smelliness with the help of a histrionic hummingbird, and finally cozying up to her proud, evidently single parent (there’s no sign of another) for a closing cuddle.
Should be packaged with an oxygen supply, as it will incontestably elicit uncontrollable gales of giggles. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-60083-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Beware the imagination that cannot be contained.
When Poppa Fox comes to pick his son up after school he finds Little Fox a complete grump. Happily, Poppa Fox knows just the way to perk up his kiddo. One minute they’re pretending to be race cars, the next they’re dinos on the bus, and then later they’re blasting off to outer space to grab some ice cream. Unfortunately, all that sugar before dinner means that Little Fox’s imagination is now primed to go haywire. Now he’s a robo squid destroying a broccoli forest (rather than eating his dinner), then a shark devouring his dad, who is driving a mail truck (that is, splashing way too much in the tub). Things calm down by bedtime, but when Poppa Fox tells his son he will pick him up again the next day, Little Fox already has big plans. As books built on the power of imagination go, this story starts out strong but loses steam about the time Little Fox loses his focus. Santat’s art does more than its fair share of the heavy lifting, particularly when Little Fox’s imagination is supposed to go off the rails. Madcap adventure never looked this fun. Yet the book can’t quite nail the landing, shifting tone from one page turn to the next, leaving readers ultimately unsatisfied. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 33.8% of actual size.)
Aims high but just doesn’t get there. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21250-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2020 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
