Marvelously astute.
Nature’s miniature whimsies bloom in Ukhova’s wordless picture-book debut, imported from Russia.
A far-off white airplane slips across the rich blue sky as a pale White child rests on a blanket in the middle of a lush green garden. An apple core sits just near their head, overtaken by a squadron of ants. The ants soon crawl over to the child’s face. Intrigued, the child walks over to the anthill. A caterpillar stirs in a pea pod when the child disturbs it, dropping it right beside the anthill. It happens in a series of seconds: The ants overtake the caterpillar and drag their spoils into their home. The child sees it all, with a look of dismay creeping onto their face. The caterpillar’s demise plays out over just a few pages, and it ends almost as soon as it starts, but Ukhova mitigates the small-scale viciousness of the scene thanks to her use of a color palette full of gorgeous greens and blues and a restrained approach to the subject matter made insightful by the absence of text. When the child captures a grasshopper, tearing off one of its legs in the process, the grasshopper’s scooped into a jar to spare it from the same end that befell the caterpillar. Inside the clear jar, the grasshopper’s world reveals itself in all its reliefs and dangers. Through all that happens, the child learns about the effects of their actions on the natural world, and it’s a lesson worth imparting here.
Marvelously astute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77164-692-5
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Greystone Kids
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
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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