A heartwarming tale of kinship and community.
The animals need the fire, but how will they get it?
According to Cherokee tradition, when the animals needed fire to keep them warm during cold nights, Great Thunder and his sons, the Thunder Boys, invoke a lightning bolt to strike and light fire to a lone sycamore tree. Seeing that the tree is located on a tiny island in the middle of a lake, the animals have a meeting to decide how to bring the fire back across the water. Raven tries, but his white feathers are scorched black in his unsuccessful attempt. Screech Owl, Hoot Owl, and Horned Owl all try, but the smoke nearly blinds them, permanently affecting their eyes. Racer Snake and Great Black Snake are also unsuccessful. Finally Water Spider, a tiny savior, boldly creates an ingenious way to bring fire back to the animal community, the bowl she weaves with her silk to carry an ember back becoming a permanent marking on her back. Black-outlined characters have a friendly, Saturday morning–cartoon look that nevertheless carries the story’s gravitas well. Moments of humor—Racer Snake swimming with a comically determined look on his face—balance painful ones. The animals sitting in solemn counsel are a combination of recognizable North American critters and some that are not so familiar, emphasizing that this is a story of creation. Wagnon is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, and therapist Stephenson serves the Cherokee Nation.
A heartwarming tale of kinship and community. (Picture book/cosmology. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-939053-27-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: 7th Generation
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.
Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?
Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564526
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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