Steer clear of this one
A rat learns to bargain in this picture book from India.
At first glance, this story starring Chooheram, a rat living on the Punjab plains, looks like a perfect match in the push for increased diversity. It contains Indian references—“roti,” “palanquin,” milking a buffalo—and the richly textured illustrations exude an authentic feel. It also reveals a value system out of whack with the Western mainstream. Chooheram, digging underground during a rainstorm, finds a dry root. He gives it to a man trying to light a fire to make roti for his hungry children. Grateful, the man gives Chooheram a roti. Wonderful! Readers are learning about generosity and helping others. After a few more trades with other people, Chooheram acquires a buffalo, which he then trades for a human bride. What? Did this story just imply that females are possessions? Chooheram, peremptorily, sends his bride to the city to sell plums, where, thankfully, her mother retrieves her. At the denouement, Chooheram vows “never again would he make a bargain. For a dry root, he felt, was so much better than a bride.” To be clear: the book’s design and illustrations are wonderful; even the writing has clever moments. But the implication that women and girls are goods to be traded goes effectively unquestioned, beyond the bride’s clear unhappiness with her new rat husband.
Steer clear of this one . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-81-8190-168-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Karadi Tales
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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
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A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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