A charming tale sure to pique kids’ interest in Scotland—and tortoises.
Two tortoises make a home with humans near Loch Ness, Scotland, in this rhyming story about a decades-long relationship between a woman and her pets.
Neeps and Tattie, two tortoises, live in a bothy—a small hut—near Loch Ness with an older woman named Annie and her dogs, Angus and Tess. The story flashes back to when Annie adopted the tortoises 52 years earlier, when she was 10. Young Annie builds a small home for them in her garden and takes care of them for decades, both indoors and outdoors, where the tortoises like to play hide-and-seek with the dogs. When the weather cools, Annie brings the pair inside to hibernate in her refrigerator until spring. Johnson and Madden show the joys of long-lived pet ownership in accessible rhyming phrases. Youngsters are likely to chuckle at the refrigerator hibernation in Swartz’s full-color illustrations, which feature two tortoises withdrawn into shells on a tray labeled “Do Not Eat.” Scottish terms such as bothy and loch are explained in a glossary, but readers won’t need definitions to understand the tale. (The meanings behind the tortoises’ names, however, may elicit giggles.) Painted images capture the pastoral setting on Loch Ness and give the straightforward story a whimsical feel, hiding familiar shapes in bushes and clouds.
A charming tale sure to pique kids’ interest in Scotland—and tortoises.Pub Date: April 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781633813472
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Maine Authors Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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
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