The whistling wind tempts Little Horse to venture from his cozy barn to find out what’s afoot in the big wide world. With his parents’ permission, the warm brown pony with a white heart on his forehead trots out to see who might be in the barnyard and beyond—and the farther he goes, the braver he gets. When the scent of the salty sea reaches him, he trots off with wild, joyful abandon, enjoying the crashing surf, the seals and the seabirds: “Romping, stomping, pawing the ground, / Little Horse is horsing around!” His innocent awe and the pleasure he takes in his burgeoning independence are touching, and his return to the barn with mother and father racing alongside him is a comforting conclusion. While the rhythm of the rhyming narrative is a bit strained at times, Wolff’s full-bleed, sun-kissed gouache paintings are beautifully shadowed and textured, full of splashes, breezes and affection. Little horse lovers will be besotted. (Picture book. 2-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-525-47455-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2005
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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Hee haw.
10
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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. 29, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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Froggy's back (Froggy Learns to Swim, 1995, etc.) and on his first day of school, he wakes up late and goes to class in his underwear! No, that's only a dream—Froggy's parents wake him up just in time and they have breakfast together before leapfrogging to the bus stop. At school, Froggy gets a name tag, falls off his chair, and teaches the class—and the teacher—and the principal- -how to swim, an act that includes singing ``Bubble bubble, toot toot. Chicken, airplane, soldier.'' When his parents pick him up at the bus stop at the end of the day, they discover that he has forgotten his lunch box in school. `` `Oh, Froggy. Will you ever learn?' said his mother. `That's why I'm going to school, Mom!' '' The accessible writing has plenty of gratifying opportunities for funny sounds when read out loud, and is also endearingly wry: ``He liked his name. It was the first word he knew how to read. It was the only word he knew how to read.'' Remkiewicz's bright watercolors feature punchy, bouncy, bug-eyed animals wearing emphatically exaggerated expressions: This bunch is easy to love. (Picture book. 2-6)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-670-86726-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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