Fans will eat up this sweet treat.
Norma, Belly, Gramps, and Little Bee are at it again!
Brown squirrels Norma and Belly are dismayed to discover that a fortune cookie factory has just been built on top of their acorn stash. As consolation, they sneak a stray plastic-wrapped cookie back to their burrow, where they marvel at the paper fortune inside the cookie. Conferring with literate squirrels Little Bee and Gramps, they learn that “people find a fortune in a cookie and believe whatever it says.” And thus, their newest food-finding caper is born: They will infiltrate the cookie factory, insert all-new fortunes that influence humans to give their cookies to squirrels, and reap the rewards! Of course, not everything goes to plan, and the group has to dodge the factory’s burned-out fortune writer and contend with cookie consumers’ disregard of the fortunes. But readers shouldn’t worry—the squirrels always manage to get their desired snacks in the end, and this is no exception. While this fourth episode involves slightly less peril than previous volumes, readers will be no less invested in the squirrels’ newest quest. Song’s charming dialogue is filled with humor and heart. Loose lines and soft watercolors in natural colors continue to provide a calmer—but no less silly—alternative to louder graphic novels for the same audience.
Fans will eat up this sweet treat. (Graphic fiction. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9780593479759
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.
Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?
Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564526
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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