Rocket’s fans will enjoy practicing their skills and their own countdowns to (and collections for) Day 100.
Rocket, the dog of reading fame, spends the first few months of school collecting 100 “special things,” but when the 100th day of school finally arrives, five are missing.
Rocket’s items are varied and reflect his friends, the changing season and his own interests: acorns, the letters of the alphabet, a few of Owl’s feathers, heart-shaped rocks, sticks shaped like numbers, pine cones, pencils, etc. Bella the squirrel kindly allows Rocket to stow all these items in her hole in a tree. But when he comes to collect them again, five things are missing…five acorns. The squirrel tries to avoid questions about the missing acorns. “The what?...Acorns?” In a hysterical double-page spread that beautifully captures the confession of a compulsion, the squirrel, head flung back, paws thrown wide, shouts, “YES! I ATE THEM!...I LOVE ACORNS SO MUCH!” A page turn shows a sad Rocket and a remorseful Bella. But the clever dog is not stymied for long. Luckily, he has four old friends and a new (and forgiven) friend in Bella, making the requisite 100. A large font, short sentences and white background behind large, simple illustrations help readers decode words, just like their favorite reading dog.
Rocket’s fans will enjoy practicing their skills and their own countdowns to (and collections for) Day 100. (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: Dec. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-39095-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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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BOOK REVIEW
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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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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