Bold colors, phonetically zippy rhymes, sturdy book construction and countless creature combinations are a winning formula...
“What crazy creatures will you meet today?”
Scheffler illustrates a series of bouncy two-verse poems about animals, with verses on the left-hand page and pictures on the right. And there’s a “flip-flap” twist: Each right-hand page is split in half; turning a flap to the left changes each pictured animal considerably. (The spiral binding and sturdy stock make this task easy for young readers.) Starting with the cow—“I’m beautiful! My nose is pink, / I have lovely big brown eyes. / I swish my tail from side to side / to keep away the flies”—pulling the top half yields the upper half of a pink pig with a mottled bovine bottom half, udder and all! Turning still more flaps brings up a rooster, lamb, horse or squirrel for the top half. There are 11 individual animals in all, bringing the number of possible combinations to well over 100. And each crazy creature has a different name. That oinker with udders is called a pow. There’s also a cabbit (cow/rabbit), a moat (mouse/goat) and a hirrel (horse/squirrel). And on and on and on.
Bold colors, phonetically zippy rhymes, sturdy book construction and countless creature combinations are a winning formula for beginning readers and storytimers. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7067-2
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The silence of the dark night is disrupted by a terrible howl. Could it be a wolf? The hedgehog is the first animal to find...
A baby owl in distress brings out the best in all the forest animals.
The silence of the dark night is disrupted by a terrible howl. Could it be a wolf? The hedgehog is the first animal to find the howler, a tiny owl with enormous eyes. Next come a crow, the industrious ant and the squirrel. None can get the owl to explain her distress or get her to stop crying, even with offers of food and fun. The mole tries a bribe of a beautiful flower necklace...which also doesn't work, though it looks nice hanging around the owl's neck. The stag beetle tries tough love, but this only makes the owl howl even louder. Feeling terrible, the stag beetle then suggests rocking the little owl to calm her and finds a cobweb that, stretched between two trees like a hammock, is perfect for the job. They rock the little owl while the mole sings a lovely lullaby. Suddenly, the little owl flies out of her makeshift hammock and into the air, landing in the wings of Mommy Owl, who gently asks what's wrong. And the little owl stops howling. The slight bedtime story is enhanced by beautiful illustrations in deep hues and an offbeat cast of forest animals. Laminated pages make it appropriately sturdy for the very young target audience.Pub Date: June 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4017-1
Page Count: 28
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Rohmann sets a short lullaby from an early-20th-century poet and printer to brushy watercolor scenes of a family of lightly anthropomorphized, bright-eyed squirrels frisking about a grassy, sunlit glade before returning to their cozy nest to sleep. Because the text is so brief that many spreads have just a single word—or none at all—this reads like a short film captured on paper, its pacing governed by the timing of page turns. The poem may be brief, but Guthrie’s language is simply gorgeous: “To the milk-white / Silk-white / Lily-white star, / A fond goodnight / Wherever you are.” The book’s wee trim—it’s a snug seven-by-seven–inch square—emphasizes the intimacy of both words and art. The illustrator has done this sort of thing before, of course, most notably in his Caldecott-winning My Friend Rabbit (2002); here the art is lighter in line and color but just as joyful. A die-cut front cover provides an inviting gateway to an idyll that will tempt viewers to linger. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59643-508-7
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
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