Clever fun continues in this delightful series.
Mischievous Cat is back (Here Comes Santa Cat, 2014, etc.), this time determined to meet the Tooth Fairy.
After losing a tooth, Cat is disappointed that he didn’t get to meet the Tooth Fairy when she left a coin under his pillow. Never at a loss for ideas, Cat concocts a plan to lure her back. Underwood and Rueda continue their playful repartee between the oh-so-patient narrator and silent Cat, bouncing the narrator’s understated questions off of Cat’s humorous expressions and handheld signs. Cat finds that it’s harder to trick a fairy than he expected. Two packages arrive with a note that suggests, “if you help me with a few deliveries, maybe we can meet. Love, Tooth Fairy.” But: “P.S. You’ll have some help.” When Mouse shows up as Cat’s assistant, Underwood plays the two off each other to great effect. Both animals are full of not-quite-helpful suggestions (“Cat! Mouse can climb into the hole perfectly well without your, uh, help”), and Rueda’s ink-and–colored-pencil illustrations heighten the humor with spot-on expressions and sight gags. Generous white space, expert timing, and minimalist illustrations focus attention on the plentiful, playful banter.
Clever fun continues in this delightful series. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-42774-2
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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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
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BOOK REVIEW
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