Cirrus-ly great.
The scoop on clouds, led by two long-eared skywatchers trading observations and outlooks.
“Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your hair!” cries one plushy little white rabbit, gesturing theatrically at the sky. Responds a second bunny, with eyeglasses: “Those are CIRRUS clouds, and they are basically a lot of microscopic ice crystals.” That’s just one of several similar exchanges beneath gathering cumulus clouds of various sorts, but when storm clouds deliver a mighty BOOM! of thunder, the roles reverse, and it’s the one without glasses delivering the cerebral disquisition on cumulonimbus while the other squeaks about a “humongous monster!” They are, of course, both right…as readers able to let their imaginations roam and also absorb Freedman’s unusually expansive gallery of cloud types will be well equipped to understand. Along with the pleasures of viewing diaphanous watercolor portraits of the 10 main types of clouds and less common sorts ranging from virga and lenticularis to mammatus and wavelike Kelvin–Helmholtz, Freedman offers additional facts in inset boxes, plus lucid schematic views of how clouds form and of the whole water cycle to boot. “There is so much to learn about clouds!” marvels one bunny. And indeed, so much to learn about the world and how we perceive it.
Cirrus-ly great. (selected resources, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593352670
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with...
Reynolds and Brown have crafted a Halloween tale that balances a really spooky premise with the hilarity that accompanies any mention of underwear.
Jasper Rabbit needs new underwear. Plain White satisfies him until he spies them: “Creepy underwear! So creepy! So comfy! They were glorious.” The underwear of his dreams is a pair of radioactive-green briefs with a Frankenstein face on the front, the green color standing out all the more due to Brown’s choice to do the entire book in grayscale save for the underwear’s glowing green…and glow they do, as Jasper soon discovers. Despite his “I’m a big rabbit” assertion, that glow creeps him out, so he stuffs them in the hamper and dons Plain White. In the morning, though, he’s wearing green! He goes to increasing lengths to get rid of the glowing menace, but they don’t stay gone. It’s only when Jasper finally admits to himself that maybe he’s not such a big rabbit after all that he thinks of a clever solution to his fear of the dark. Brown’s illustrations keep the backgrounds and details simple so readers focus on Jasper’s every emotion, writ large on his expressive face. And careful observers will note that the underwear’s expression also changes, adding a bit more creep to the tale.
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with Dr. Seuss’ tale of animate, empty pants. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0298-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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
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