This attempt to bring levity to an already-difficult grammar task for children just tangles the situation further.
A stern yam corrects a grammatically challenged donkey.
Beginning a muddled and maddening who’s-on-first routine, with enough back and forth to make youngsters’ heads spin, a donkey proudly proclaims, “I yam a donkey!” However, a nearby yam disagrees. “The proper way to say that,” it admonishes, “is ‘I am a donkey.’ ” To which the donkey incredulously replies, “You is a donkey, too?” The poor, foolish donkey never quite figures out which form of “to be” to use, and the small, bespectacled yam grows increasingly frustrated. When a cluster of vegetables—green beans, a turnip, and a carrot—comes along (and introduces new pronouns), the donkey has a grand realization. Sadly, it’s not about grammar but about…lunch! The moral, as Bell explicitly states in the end, is: “If you is going to be eaten, good grammar don’t matter.” Parents, teachers, and librarians may cringe. Kids not yet literate enough to recognize the visual difference between “yam” and “I am” will likely be too confused to care. The homophonic nuance is not a familiar language problem (unless you are Popeye), so many readers will not get the chance to rise above and see any humor—in either correcting the donkey or being invested in the joke.
This attempt to bring levity to an already-difficult grammar task for children just tangles the situation further. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-08720-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 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
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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