Ecological storytelling at its finest.
Rhino and Tickbird’s query about why Crocodile cries tears leads them from one animal to another, triggering troubling and provocative questions about Africa’s endangered habitats and its vanishing wildlife.
As Crocodile cries beside the Mburu River, Rhino asks Tickbird, “Why is Crocodile crying?” Rather than confront wily Crocodile, Tickbird sagely suggests asking a rare golden eagle, who believes Crocodile misses the trumpeting elephants. Rhino and Tickbird proceed to find an old elephant, who thinks Crocodile misses singing tree frogs. A solo tree frog thinks Crocodile misses flitting blue butterflies. A lone butterfly thinks Crocodile misses giraffes crossing the savanna. A single giraffe thinks Crocodile misses cheetahs sprinting across the grasslands. Cheetah thinks Crocodile misses open spaces, and Ostrich refuses to answer, burying his head in the sand. Then Rhino makes the nearly fatal mistake of asking Crocodile why he cries. Beard’s strong use of textual repetition emphasizes the somber subtext that explores the “ongoing collapse of the wild and its inhabitants,” while his bold signature pen-and-watercolor illustrations rely on line, pattern and color in a primitive style that echoes some African folk art. Like a camera lens, strongly defined borders zero in on the action among Rhino, Tickbird and the endangered animals while droll expressions on animal faces add humorous touches to this cautionary tale.
Ecological storytelling at its finest. (author’s note, glossary of endangered animals with colored photos) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0008-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
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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