Mischief and mayhem abound where sly cats are involved. Holy chisels, this is fun!
How can one naughty kitty upend an entire construction site?
Cranky the crane truck—last seen in the picture book Cranky Makes a Friend (2025)—and the other vehicles are hard at work building a new playground when they notice that things seem seriously awry. Paint cans have been knocked over, and tiny footprints are everywhere. All too soon the perpetrator, a small gray cat, makes herself known. The kitty quickly attaches herself to Cranky and causes more chaos: scratching the new beams, climbing the ladder on a newly installed slide, napping on the boxes containing the monkey bars, and, worst of all, making off with Cranky’s lunch. But when it’s clear that she enjoys Cranky’s company, our grumpy protagonist softens toward the animal (“It’s hard for me to stay cranky when there’s a purring cat on my head”) and officially dubs her “Bad Cat.” Though labeled an easy reader, this tale relies on potentially complex words such as mystery, whistle, and pickles. Nevertheless, the storyline reaps maximum fun from its adorable trickster, who believably turns Cranky’s mood around. The art remains simple and uncomplicated, reveling in Cranky’s general gloom and annoyance and Bad Cat’s playful exuberance.
Mischief and mayhem abound where sly cats are involved. Holy chisels, this is fun! (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9780063469099
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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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