Beautiful book design and illustrations drenched in the red-gold light of Australia enhance the warm-hearted story of Wombat. One day Wombat digs a hole and sits in it, thinking—so long that when he comes out, he can’t find his mother. He meets Kookaburra, Wallaby, Emu, and even Boy in his search. Each asks him who he is and what he does, and he responds, “I’m Wombat. I dig a lot and I think a lot.” No one is very impressed with this: the boy brags that he can jump, run, even hunt; Possum can hang upside down; Emu can run around in circles. But none of them has seen Wombat’s mother, so he climbs as high as he can, looking for her. He doesn’t find her, but he does see fire coming, and warns the others. They all hide in the hole Wombat dug deep and dark, and are safe until the fire passes, and then all help Wombat find his mother. The deep rhythms and call and response of this story fit a comfortable pattern: Birmingham (The Windhover, 1997) burnishes that with wonderfully detailed full-page images facing the text pages. Energetic grisaille sketches of whatever animal Wombat is talking to usually surround the text. He’s an incredibly cute little fellow himself. Besides its undeniable kid appeal, the wombat is the mascot of at least two online library discussion groups—they are going to love it. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-1168-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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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