This pivotal childhood milestone is often defined by fear, but this variant is for young brooders everywhere.
Bear can do anything he puts his mind to—except ride a bike.
Bear is a whiz at facts and figures. He can do a backward pike somersault on the balance beam. But every time he tries to ride his bike, even with training wheels, he falls or crashes. Bear just can’t do it. The situation worsens when a park opens in town, and Bear can’t join his friends on the new bike path, which arbitrarily and unkindly bans training wheels. (This is helpful to the plot, though.) Everyone is having fun without him. So Bear does what any desperate, lumpy little fellow like him should do—he goes to the library in search of answers. A book tells him how to ride a bike in four easy steps. The last step is the most important: don’t think about it too much. But Bear can’t stop thinking about it. He mulls it over and worries until everything becomes a disaster, even his triple back-paw-spring. Luckily, a sudden meteorological disaster (sharp readers will spot a hint in Koala’s newspaper) helps Bear spring into action and overcome his fears—without stopping to think! Bear’s supportive friends and family, along with Litten’s warm-hued, cozy illustrations, drape the story in comfort, even during Bear’s many tumbles and spills.
This pivotal childhood milestone is often defined by fear, but this variant is for young brooders everywhere. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-0506-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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
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