Crackers, crocodiles, and cut-ups abound in this delightful launch of a new easy-reading series.
In New Yorker cartoonist Panckeri’s children’s book debut, a high-seas dinner theater goes awry.
On a perfect day, when the sun is shining and the ice cream is sweet, friends Duck and Cat spot a riverboat in the harbor. At Duck’s urging, the reluctant Cat joins his pal for a dinner cruise with live music. Alas, due to illness, the cook and the performer both take off. This would be less of a problem were it not for the hungry crocodiles also aboard who are now eyeing Cat and Duck as dinner substitutes. Fortunately, creativity and quick thinking turn our intrepid heroes into the cook and theatrical entertainment everyone requires. Supremely simple art accompanies a beginner-level text that manages to get quite a bit of humor and whimsy in; both words and images have a strong James Marshall vibe. When requested to do something about the hungry crocs, the captain replies, “I am doing something. Steering this ship. This sounds more like a you problem than a me problem.” And while our heroes’ willingness to completely forgive the crocodiles is a bit implausible, as Duck points out to Cat, “You get hangry, too.”
Crackers, crocodiles, and cut-ups abound in this delightful launch of a new easy-reading series. (Early reader/graphic fiction. 5-7)Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780823460519
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: yesterday
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
