Skip—skinned knees should be the only elementary school drama.
A first-grade love story with a woodchuck as a go-between. Really.
Other kids bring a ukulele, a sombrero, a feather, or a tadpole to show and tell. Not Chuck. He brings Woodchuck to class, and the guest rodent entertains everyone to such an extent that he becomes a permanent fixture in the classroom. Woodchuck is especially friendly to Caroline, the first-person narrator, a brunette who wears glasses. On a cold, windy day, Woodchuck delivers a hat for her to wear that looks suspiciously like Chuck’s. And when she drops her cupcake, Woodchuck is there with another: Chuck’s. The rodent-mediated sweetness continues throughout the school year, until Chuck finally works up the courage to ask her if he and Woodchuck might walk her home, the final spread showing the three of them holding hands, Woodchuck in the middle. While kids will undoubtedly find Woodchuck’s antics cool, this is otherwise a very odd picture book—a love story involving 6-year-olds. They don’t play together, and Chuck isn’t protecting his ladylove from bullies or standing up for her, making this story about as far from first-grade reality as it can get (besides the genius mammal). Bell’s ink-and-digital cartoon illustrations depict blocky characters with not much facial expression, excepting Woodchuck, who rather steals the show. Both main characters are white, though there is a bit of diversity in the school.
Skip—skinned knees should be the only elementary school drama. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7524-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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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