This is children’s music grown-ups won’t mind hearing over and over, no trouble at all.
For listeners of all ages, Boynton and Michael Ford’s latest CD/songbook combination presents 12 new songs in a country-western mode.
In this grand collection for children and their caregivers, the producers of Philadelphia Chickens (2002) sample styles beyond country music: cowboy, bluegrass and blues, honkytonk and hillbilly rock. The book has three sections: lyrics (or at least the first verse or two), written by Boynton and illustrated with her cartoons; musical notation (melody and chords) and complete words; and performers’ biographies. On the CD, the all-star collection of musicians includes names familiar to fans of the genre. They put these songs over convincingly, although it’s hard to imagine there weren’t some giggles along the way. The tunes, some written in collaboration with keyboardist Ford, are catchy and appealing, the arrangements simple enough to understand the words and the lyrics, which are appropriate for young children. There’s heartbreak, as a bunny bewails how “[t]hey make me clean up my room”; a small boy’s delight in “Trucks”; the dreamy “When Pigs Fly”; and two different versions of the titular “Frog Trouble.” The background percussion for “I’ve Got a Dog” includes The Scotty Brothers playing spoons. “Alligator Stroll” is followed by instructions and diagrams for simple dance steps. Backmatter includes instructions for making a folded-paper frog puppet.
This is children’s music grown-ups won’t mind hearing over and over, no trouble at all. (Songbook/CD. 3 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7611-7176-8
Page Count: 70
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on.
Sharpson offers so-fish-ticated readers a heads up about the true terror of the seas.
The title says it all. Our unseen narrator is just fine with other animals: mammals. Reptiles. Even birds. But fish? Don’t trust them! First off, the rules always seem to change with fish. Some live in fresh water; some reside in salt water. Some have gills, while others have lungs. You can never see what they’re up to, since they hang out underwater, and they’re always eating those poor, innocent crabs. Soon, the narrator introduces readers to Jeff, a vacant-eyed yellow fish—but don’t be fooled! Jeff’s “the craftiest fish of all.” All fish are, apparently, hellbent on world domination, the narrator warns. “DON’T TRUST FISH!” Finally, at the tail end, we get a sly glimpse of our unreliable narrator. Readers needn’t be ichthyologists to appreciate Sharpson’s meticulous comic timing. (“Ships always sink at sea. They never sink on land. Isn’t that strange?”) His delightful text, filled to the brim with jokes that read aloud brilliantly, pairs perfectly with Santat’s art, which shifts between extreme realism and goofy hilarity. He also fills the book with his own clever gags (such as an image of Gilligan’s Island’s S.S. Minnow going down and a bottle of sauce labeled “Surly Chik’n Srir’racha’r”).
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780593616673
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
A regrettable flaw in an otherwise outstanding offering.
A new exploration of the biological world, from one of the current masters of collage, features life-size—not scaled—representations of the extremes of the animal kingdom.
Wonderfully textured collages are set against a white background, accompanied by a minimal text gloss about the animals, and their sizes. Some are so huge that only parts can be seen (the one-foot-diameter eye of a giant squid) and others require some squinting (the 1/3-inch dwarf goby). It’s a fascinating subject, and one that will resonate with an audience for whom relative size is a matter of daily interest. Jenkins exploits it for all its worth, including a fold-out of a crocodile’s jaw and a snarling tiger whose face spills off the page. Four concluding pages provide more information about the featured animals, along with reasonably sized, full-body reiterations of the illustrations. Sadly enough, however, in a book that is so intimately concerned with measurement, only English units are used, seemingly ignoring the fact that the metric system is the universal language of science worldwide.
A regrettable flaw in an otherwise outstanding offering. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-12)Pub Date: May 25, 2004
ISBN: 0-618-37594-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
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