With just a “Woof! Woof!” Ben and Ellie’s new teacher has the class’s rapt attention. Riff, an inquisitive-looking canine, wags his tail. With glee, his observant charges wag their bottoms. When he scratches an ear, they scratch all over. The pupils, all human, happily spend P.E. digging and fetching, imitating Riff; and after a couple of sniffs, they know it’s lunchtime. Broadway’s charmingly simple illustrations capture the joyful curiosity of Ben and Ellie’s class as they accept the most silly of circumstances. In a number of spreads, she manages to display each child’s individuality, and during naptime, she masterfully invokes the sweet bliss of sleep that comes under the watchful eye of a loyal and trusted friend. The artwork establishes a rhythmic interplay between words and images, as they become compositional elements that inform and complement one another. Hayes’s playful text, with its call-and-response–like format and potty humor, will have young readers in stitches. The story begs to be read aloud in a group setting, but be prepared for giggles galore, as readers bark, pant and shake with Riff and company. A real crowd-pleaser. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-374-31810-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A delightfully silly celebration of familial love.
A child in search of the best hugger takes a bedtime tour of the world’s most unusual embraces.
In the opening pages of this rhyming picture book, an unnamed narrator asks a curly-haired, tan-skinned child who they think gives the best hugs. At the narrator’s behest, the protagonist spends their bedtime routine receiving affection from a wacky cast of creatures, ranging from meerkats to porcupines to narwhals. These animals have a variety of body types, but even those with a lack of limbs still express their love; the seahorse, for example, gives the child a “smooch” right before bathtime, and a grinning cobra offers the child a “clinch,” wrapping itself around their leg. Although many of the animals prove to be more prickly than cozy—the narrator points out, for example, the sharpness of bird beaks and porcupine quills—even the snuggliest koalas and bears cannot compare to the best hug of all: a parent’s embrace right before bedtime. The use of second-person address combined with the protagonist’s beautifully illustrated facial expressions and the buoyant, clever lines of verse render this book a hilarious and whimsical ride sure to delight both children and the adults who read to them. The pictures and text work together to create a clear narrative arc for the protagonist, and though the ending is a bit predictable, it’s nevertheless a wonderful payoff. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A delightfully silly celebration of familial love. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5476-1236-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
The words to a Christmas song from the 1950s serve as the text for this exploration of a most unusual Christmas gift. An unnamed little girl in pink pajamas is the first-person narrator, explaining in detail why she wants a hippopotamus as her present. Various views of the hippo are shown in a slightly confusing, nonlinear time sequence, but then why would time proceed in a straightforward fashion with a hippo in the house? Santa is shown pushing the hippo through the door, and the following pages show the little girl caring for her hippo, unwrapping it as a Christmas package (a different packaging treatment is shown on the cover), and then flying off with Santa as the hippo pulls the sleigh. Though the little girl and the words to the song are rather ordinary, the lively, lavender hippo in Whatley’s illustrations is a delightful creature, with a big, pink bow on its head and expressive, bulging eyes. (In fact, that hippo deserves a name and a story of its own.) The music and song lyrics are included in the final spread. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-052942-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2005
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