What a wag!
A very good, very smart dog explains how readers can be their best doggy selves.
Chip, the protagonist of Don’t Eat Bees (2022), is back with some more lessons. First and foremost? “Don’t trust cats!” It doesn’t matter if they’re fluffy or stripy, big or small. But our hero assures us that there are plenty of things we can trust—like one’s nose. Of course, our narrator may be a bit too trusting; Chip emphasizes that “Those birds and squirrels you try so hard to catch? You can trust them. They’re laughing with you, not at you.” (Readers may beg to differ.) Boldt’s views of a wide-eyed pooch with a massive, shiny nose enthusiastically rolling in muck, shredding mail as it drops through a slot, and bounding up to a porcupine and then a skunk in expectation of meeting new friends steal the show. But Petty gets in quite a few good zingers, too—punctuating a tally of “trustastic” things like the fire hydrant (“It’s always been there for you”) and Grandpa, who may cheat at cards but always has a doggy treat ready. Don’t trust the vacuum, though, advises the stubby-tailed sage, and ESPECIALLY don’t trust cats: “Nohow, no meow.” A sly-looking cat and an olive-skinned human family add comical background reactions to the hilariously mismatched maxims and misdeeds of this canine life coach.
What a wag! (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593706787
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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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