This attempt to bring levity to an already-difficult grammar task for children just tangles the situation further.
A stern yam corrects a grammatically challenged donkey.
Beginning a muddled and maddening who’s-on-first routine, with enough back and forth to make youngsters’ heads spin, a donkey proudly proclaims, “I yam a donkey!” However, a nearby yam disagrees. “The proper way to say that,” it admonishes, “is ‘I am a donkey.’ ” To which the donkey incredulously replies, “You is a donkey, too?” The poor, foolish donkey never quite figures out which form of “to be” to use, and the small, bespectacled yam grows increasingly frustrated. When a cluster of vegetables—green beans, a turnip, and a carrot—comes along (and introduces new pronouns), the donkey has a grand realization. Sadly, it’s not about grammar but about…lunch! The moral, as Bell explicitly states in the end, is: “If you is going to be eaten, good grammar don’t matter.” Parents, teachers, and librarians may cringe. Kids not yet literate enough to recognize the visual difference between “yam” and “I am” will likely be too confused to care. The homophonic nuance is not a familiar language problem (unless you are Popeye), so many readers will not get the chance to rise above and see any humor—in either correcting the donkey or being invested in the joke.
This attempt to bring levity to an already-difficult grammar task for children just tangles the situation further. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-08720-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
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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A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
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