An easily digestible lesson in teamwork with animal appeal.
A variety of forest critters experience misfortune.
A squirrel is at a loss: “Oh no—I climbed up high / to get this yummy nut. / And now I’m here, though it appears / I am completely stuck!” A snake has twisted itself into a knot; a tortoise has flipped onto its shell; a woodpecker’s beak is stuck in a tree trunk; a mouse is trapped in a fox’s stomach; and the fox has a bellyache. The squirrel realizes that if they all help one another, they can free the mouse from the fox’s belly. The illustrations show the various animals grappling with their predicaments then solving them by working together. “If I just turn myself around / and use this tail I’ve got, / the bird can fly down from the tree… / and loosen up Snake’s knot,” says the squirrel, for example. Written in rhyming verse, the book conveys an important message in an engaging way: If we all work together and help one another, we can accomplish things we could not do alone. The ink, pencil, and paint illustrations incorporate lots of textures, color variations, and small details (like insect friends on multiple pages) that will hold young readers’ interest, inviting them to return to the story again and again. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An easily digestible lesson in teamwork with animal appeal. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 14, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-2378-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
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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