A well-intentioned effort that fails to take flight.
The first year in the life of a Steller’s jay is recounted, with a focus on the Southwest ponderosa pine forest and other animals that live there.
Jabber is one of four baby birds born in the, apparently, spring, and the story follows her development as she grows feathers, learns to fly, and hunts for her own food. Jabber is shown in relation to several other birds and to animals such as a chipmunk, a mountain lion, and a porcupine. By the following spring, Jabber is fully mature, building a nest with her mate in preparation for laying her own eggs. The story is rather sedate, doing its best to derive dramatic tension from the difficulties of finding food and protection from other birds and animals. Three final pages provide information about the other birds and animals encountered by Jabber. A full page of dedications and acknowledgments precedes the text, space readers may feel might have been better used to include more pertinent facts about Steller’s jays, such as the origin of the name, distinction from more common blue jays, habitat location, and interesting characteristics such as their ability to mimic the vocalizations of other birds. Illustrations in colored pencil provide appealing backgrounds of the forest environment, but many views of the birds and animals are static and fail to depict interesting actions described in the text.
A well-intentioned effort that fails to take flight. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943328-89-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: WestWinds Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with...
Reynolds and Brown have crafted a Halloween tale that balances a really spooky premise with the hilarity that accompanies any mention of underwear.
Jasper Rabbit needs new underwear. Plain White satisfies him until he spies them: “Creepy underwear! So creepy! So comfy! They were glorious.” The underwear of his dreams is a pair of radioactive-green briefs with a Frankenstein face on the front, the green color standing out all the more due to Brown’s choice to do the entire book in grayscale save for the underwear’s glowing green…and glow they do, as Jasper soon discovers. Despite his “I’m a big rabbit” assertion, that glow creeps him out, so he stuffs them in the hamper and dons Plain White. In the morning, though, he’s wearing green! He goes to increasing lengths to get rid of the glowing menace, but they don’t stay gone. It’s only when Jasper finally admits to himself that maybe he’s not such a big rabbit after all that he thinks of a clever solution to his fear of the dark. Brown’s illustrations keep the backgrounds and details simple so readers focus on Jasper’s every emotion, writ large on his expressive face. And careful observers will note that the underwear’s expression also changes, adding a bit more creep to the tale.
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with Dr. Seuss’ tale of animate, empty pants. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0298-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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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