Sure to prompt reflection on what it means to be a friend.
Finding a friend isn’t easy for this misunderstood monarch.
King Lion surveys his kingdom and realizes that he’s quite lonely. But his search for companionship is unfruitful: His subjects flee, terrified by his roars and fierce demeanor. It takes a brave little girl to look past his frightening surface and beat him at his own game. When the lion shows off his huge claws, she holds up a hand and smiles. When he roars, she does, too. And when he opens his jaws wide and glares menacingly, she responds: “Hello…let’s be friends.” Following the girl’s example, the king takes steps to be a good friend to his subjects. Though it treads familiar territory, this U.K. import is a charmer. The contrast between the miserable king whom we see in the opening pages and the happy one at the end is striking. Accompanied by hand-lettered text, the bold illustrations include several full-page depictions of King Lion searching for companionship; the most impressive image showcases the standoff between the lion and the girl, with a close-up of the king’s face. The girl is light-skinned, and the citizenry includes animals and racially diverse humans.
Sure to prompt reflection on what it means to be a friend. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781536231496
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
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
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