New readers will be “HAPPY-HAPPY-HAPPY” to see this promising new series.
Humphrey, the classroom hamster, is back, this time in a new series for chapter-book readers.
Newly-independent readers are in for a treat with these stories of Humphrey’s adventures on the weekends. Each Friday afternoon, the suspense builds for the little hamster hero as he finds out where his temporary home will be. In this first outing, Humphrey goes home with Mandy (nicknamed Don’t-Complain-Mandy-Payne) and makes friends with her pet hamster, Winky. Winky has a hamster car, propelled by a plastic hamster wheel, and Humphrey is impressed. He loves his own little ball, but it’s not nearly as fabulous as Winky’s car. When Mrs. Brisbane buys a car for Humphrey, the class decides to have a race day—Winky versus Humphrey, and Og, the class frog, versus George, the frog from another class. In the second story (publishing simultaneously), Humphrey’s Playful Puppy Problem, Humphrey goes home with Richie, who plans to use Humphrey in his science experiment. Humphrey has to fend off a too-loving puppy called Poppy and fix the experiment when the pup’s exuberance proves to be too much for it. Birney has created the kind of series that first- and second-grade readers will love. It’s set in school, the vocabulary is accessible, the font and spacing are generous, and the frequent illustrations tie the story together.
New readers will be “HAPPY-HAPPY-HAPPY” to see this promising new series. (Animal fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25201-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
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
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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