Pretty at first glance, but unlikely to engage children more than superficially.
A saccharine forest-friendship tale chock-full of cute little bugs, frogs, spiders and other wildlife ready to pulse and giggle with a tap.
The story is cast (and also read by the optional narrator) in an earnest tone despite an oxymoronic opening: “One day a young wolf cub named Jack sat in a forest clearing and stared at the night sky.” It pairs Jack with a fallen star that needs help from a spider and an owl to get back to the sky and reattached to its celestial home. Notwithstanding Jack’s “Oh, I feel so lonely sitting here by all by myself,” his cluttered house and each moonlit, elaborately finished, cartoon-style woodland scene is positively festooned with large-eyed small animals. They leap, croak, flit away, wake up, fall down or otherwise respond to taps while background music tinkles away. And just to add some confusion to the sugar rush, a shadowy, wolf-shaped figure lurks in the bushes in two scenes before slinking away entirely. What’s that about? Readers who (rightly) judge the story worth no more than a quick run-through will find as diversions five coloring pages and five jigsaw puzzles. These are, happily, accessible from any screen.
Pretty at first glance, but unlikely to engage children more than superficially. (iPad storybook app. 5-7)Pub Date: May 23, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Yabra
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 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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