A heartwarming paean to long walks along the beach.
Who wouldn’t want to be friends with a whale?
Every spring Dario travels with his mother to Cape Cod from their home in Brazil. Every spring a right whale migrates to the same location. She brings her calf to a bay near the restaurant where Dario’s mother cooks. In a charming turn of events, the author parallels Dario’s experiences with the cetaceans’. They gravitate here yearly—for Dario’s mother’s employment, for the whales’ spring migration. When Dario attempts to make new friends, his limited English make this hard; the whale alienates potential pals in the sea, either unintentionally or by design. And so the stage is set for these two to become fast friends. Once they’ve noticed each other, they “visit” and communicate for hours at the beach daily; Dario’s whistles elicit V-shaped spouts; the boy’s waves result in spectacular breaching displays. When Dario learns that the whales must soon leave, he’s sad, but, with a giant slap of a notched tail, his new friend “assures” him of return the following year. This delightful story is based on the author’s actual experience on Cape Cod. The illustrations are delicately lovely, the simple backgrounds allowing readers to focus on the action and expressive main characters. A helpful note about right whales concludes the book.
A heartwarming paean to long walks along the beach. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1463-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
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
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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