A sweet and surprising search for self, friendship, and acceptance.
A shell quest gives new meaning to the term diverse ecosystem in this graphic-novel early reader.
Backyards can seem really big, especially if you are a slug, and life can be lonely when you are all by yourself. That’s why, when this story’s main character, an unnamed slug, hears rustling in the garden and spots snails nearby, its eyes light up. But there is a problem. The slug doesn’t have a shell like every snail should. When the snails offer to let the slug play with them provided it gets a shell, the slug scoots off searching for a shell—evidently the key to finding friends and leaving loneliness behind. Unfortunately, the shell substitutes it finds (an acorn cap, a thimble, and an outgrown snail shell) all fail in some fashion. With tears that blend into the raindrops, the slug worries that it will never fit in anywhere and that it will be alone forever. At least the slug has made one friend, a kind snail that, “shell or no shell,” has the slug’s back. This is a good thing since a flash flood quickly “whoosh[es]” them both away—to a welcoming and diverse hollow-log community. Simple, earth-toned backgrounds in most panels spotlight critters with expressive ping-pong–ball eyestalks that lend them great personality. Most pages are laid out in simple two-by-three–panel grids, facilitating clarity for beginning comics readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A sweet and surprising search for self, friendship, and acceptance. (comics-reading tutorial, additional facts) (Graphic early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: June 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-306783-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
