Rolf’s granny-ish best friend Mrs. Boggins praises his goodness but cautions him that some wolves are “downright bad.”...
When Rolf, a good little wolf, encounters the archetypal big baddie, justice is nearly—but not quite—served.
Rolf’s granny-ish best friend Mrs. Boggins praises his goodness but cautions him that some wolves are “downright bad.” Promptly, he meets just such a specimen—enormous, jet-black, toothy and yellow-eyed. The Big Bad Wolf instructs Rolf in true wolfishness, and the pup unsuccessfully tries howling at the moon ("pheep!") and blowing Little Pig’s house in. When a wild power does arise in him, Rolf uses it to entangle the large wolf in Mrs. Boggins’ knitting yarn. When the three sit then down amicably for “some tea and cake” Rolf asks if the wolf will stop eating people. “ ‘Oh, I suppose so,’ said the Big Bad Wolf… / ‘I’ll stop first thing tomorrow.’ ” Rolf and Mrs. Boggins are conspicuously absent from that next spread (perturbing, for younger preschoolers). The BBW, belly distended, muses over his cuppa in a green armchair. Shireen’s debut misses the mark by too casually fracturing folkloric elements. When Rolf asks to blow his house in, the Little Pig says “You can try, I suppose,” and even apologizes when Rolf’s effort fails. While the graphically arresting layout features bold-hued, well-telegraphed interplay between childish innocence and lupine malevolence, the depiction of Mrs. Boggins as a frozen-faced, smiling South Park–esque twit further detracts.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-86904-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their...
Ruby is an adventurous and happy child until the day she discovers a Worry.
Ruby barely sees the Worry—depicted as a blob of yellow with a frowny unibrow—at first, but as it hovers, the more she notices it and the larger it grows. The longer Ruby is affected by this Worry, the fewer colors appear on the page. Though she tries not to pay attention to the Worry, which no one else can see, ignoring it prevents her from enjoying the things that she once loved. Her constant anxiety about the Worry causes the bright yellow blob to crowd Ruby’s everyday life, which by this point is nearly all washes of gray and white. But at the playground, Ruby sees a boy sitting on a bench with a growing sky-blue Worry of his own. When she invites the boy to talk, his Worry begins to shrink—and when Ruby talks about her own Worry, it also grows smaller. By the book’s conclusion, Ruby learns to control her Worry by talking about what worries her, a priceless lesson for any child—or adult—conveyed in a beautifully child-friendly manner. Ruby presents black, with hair in cornrows and two big afro-puff pigtails, while the boy has pale skin and spiky black hair.
A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their feelings (. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0237-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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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