A beautifully written story about why Siamese cats are really Chinese cats, and why their faces, ears, paws, and tails turn darker as they grow up. Sagwa, a "pearl white kitten," lived with her parents in the House of the Foolish Magistrate. Sagwa's parents were forced by the Magistrate to write his strict, selfish rules by dipping their tails in ink. When Sagwa falls into an inkpot and walks over one of the Magistrate's Scroll of Rules — the one banning all singing — her paw marks change the meaning of the scroll so that it reads, "People must sing." When the people of the town hear the new rule, they sing in praise of the Foolish Magistrate, which warms his heart and causes him to take back all the old rules. He celebrates what Sagwa has done by opening his house to all stray cats, declaring that they shall eat as much catfish as they wish and that for ever after, "all Chinese cats shall have dark faces, ears, paws, and tails — in honor of the greatest of felines, Sagwa of China." Tan, who collaborated with Schields on her first children's book, The Moon Lady (1992), tells this charming tale perfectly, in language that is both simple and elegant. And Schields's artwork complements the text wonderfully with its traditional Chinese border decorations and colorful, well-drawn characters. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-02-788835-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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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BOOK REVIEW
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