Picky eating has rarely been so lauded as it is in this tale of a delicate amphibian diet. Bradley McGogg finds that his cupboard is bare. After much thought upon the matter he sets off to see if his neighbors might spare a bite to eat. Yet to his steadily increasing horror he finds that mice, rabbits, bears and cows prefer to munch disgusting fare. Downtrodden, Bradley returns home to a house overrun with insects. His hunger abated, he is left pondering at the end of his day, “Other folks eat some pretty strange things.” Set in rhyme, these verses prove to be quite strong, always scanning perfectly without seeming strained. The watercolor-and-gouache paintings seem a throwback to clothed-animal images of days of yore—though Potter, for instance, would never have dressed Jeremy Fisher in red-and-white striped overalls and sandals. Berman’s palette tends to darker hues, which serves the tale well when the story is located in McGogg’s bog, but readers may wish the sunlit fields were a little bit more sunny. An amusing tale, indeed. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 10, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-88776-864-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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
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