Readers longing for a lid to their own pots, or with similarly challenging behaviors, will find comfort in Broccoli’s tale.
The tricks that make a dog unadoptable in some people’s eyes are just the ticket home for Broccoli.
Broccoli’s lived at Beezley’s Animal Shelter for most of his life, alongside fluffy and adorable bunnies, hamsters, and kittens, all under the care of the kind, elderly Beezleys. Mrs. Beezley lovingly brushes each animal before opening, pronouncing, “There’s a lid for every pot and a pot for every lid.” But Mr. Beezley isn’t so sure about the lid for messy Broccoli’s pot. The dog’s tricks include tossing his water-filled dish in the air and catching it on his head, playing high-speed games of chase with his tail, and giving “warnings” with his deep and large bark. When he soaks the entire shop, Mr. Beezley puts him in the storeroom...but will the pot that is Broccoli and the lid that is the little boy longing for a dog miss each other because of this? The despondent dog finally rallies when he spies the little boy’s lost ball on a storeroom shelf. His antics get both him and the ball noticed, and Broccoli’s finally found his lid (in more ways than one). Jones nicely builds suspense, and readers will be rooting for the dog by the end. Everyone is round-headed and rosy-cheeked (and most are Caucasian) in her watercolor-and–colored-pencil illustrations.
Readers longing for a lid to their own pots, or with similarly challenging behaviors, will find comfort in Broccoli’s tale. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-230351-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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