Magic and mystery to encourage appreciation of the natural world.
In an Australian rainforest, a snail with a spiral shell grows, explores, and reproduces.
Simmons describes this process as “almost like magic,” and Shirvington’s allusive paintings extend the mood. At first, all readers will see is the snail’s spiral, but then the body appears, and finally the snail’s sparkly trails. It’s sometimes a challenge to pick out the snail among the lines and swirls. Readers will also find other Australian forest-dwellers, including a blue-tongued lizard, a large dragonfly, and even a brush turkey. The artist’s use of light and dark is intriguing; it seems to suggest that this journey extends over several days and nights. Curiously, but quite beautifully, the snail stands out most noticeably in what the text calls “the low light” of “the dark night.” The poetic text is set in short stanzas directly on the illustrations and makes extensive, but not predictable, use of rhyme and alliteration. It would be a pleasure to read aloud. Though the setting may be unfamiliar to North American readers, the presentation fits well in any sense-of-wonder collection. A similar title from New Zealand, Gay Hay and Margaret Tolland’s Watch Out, Snail! (2017), includes factual aftermatter and makes a good complement. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9.5-by-19-inch double-page spreads viewed at 68.7% of actual size.)
Magic and mystery to encourage appreciation of the natural world. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-912678-10-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little Steps/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories.
Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0297-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
