An excellent addition to classroom, library, or personal nature collections.
Who knew the food chain would make for such a jaunty rhyme?
“Far from the north, an island can be found. / Earth’s salty seas flow all around. / But who has the hungriest mouth / in the seas of the south?” There’s a great mass of plankton floating; something is coming to eat it…it could be a sea horse or a moon jelly. “No, no, no, it’s nothing like that. / It’s someone else in this habitat.” It’s pink Antarctic krill…but there’s a hungrier mouth heading toward the krill. It could be a petrel swooping down into the sea or a squid; nope, this time it’s a blue cod. Through each link in the food chain, two possibilities are offered before the answer is revealed. The animals get bigger and bigger until it’s an orca dining on a brown fur seal. British artist and teacher Walters’ debut is a fun-to-read rhyme that does an excellent job tracing one food chain from microscopic plankton to apex predator. The realistic animals in his cut-paper collages will remind adults of Steve Jenkins’ work, and young biologists will enjoy trying to identify each slightly larger mouth from just the lips (or beak) tantalizingly placed at the edge of every other recto. Backmatter completes the package, with further information, a matching activity, and a card game.
An excellent addition to classroom, library, or personal nature collections. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62855-631-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Arbordale Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
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