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HERE COMES VALENTINE CAT

From the Here Comes… series

Cat hasn’t lost his ability to charm readers, if for no other reason than children are so able to see themselves in him.

Underwood’s endearing, voiceless cat is back, this time getting a lesson in Valentine’s Day tact.

Using signs and props to communicate with an off-page, unseen, seemingly adult figure, Cat first establishes that he doesn’t like Valentine’s Day. It gradually comes out that, other than his stuffed squid, he has no friends. Just then, the conversation is interrupted by a bone, thrown over the fence by Cat’s new neighbor, Dog, and it’s not the first bone he’s thrown, either. Cat, being Cat, jumps to conclusions, especially after a thrown ball clobbers him. “Cat, what are you up to? // You are going to give Dog a valentine? // Oh, dear.” That about sums it up. Needless to say, the Roses are Red… poems Cat comes up with are not very tactful. But his construction of a rocket (to send Dog to the moon, of course) is interrupted by a valentine that flutters down and lands on its tip. Perhaps Dog isn’t the mean, awful neighbor Cat took him to be? Maybe he’s even a potential friend. Rueda masterfully uses white space and Cat’s facial expressions and body language to play up the emotions, exploiting the expansive page count for beautifully pitched comic timing.

Cat hasn’t lost his ability to charm readers, if for no other reason than children are so able to see themselves in him. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: Dec. 22, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-525-42915-9

Page Count: 88

Publisher: Dial Books

Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

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THE WONKY DONKEY

Hee haw.

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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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