Sweetly winning as the main character may be, Rand’s story is mildly confusing enough to keep readers from fully enjoying the book. Little Flower is a potbellied pig in the care of Miss Pearl. Little Flower is darling, all grins and feathery bristles as drawn by Paddington’s illustrator, and she is most proud of a trick she has learned: to roll over, poke her trotters at the sky, and play dead. Miss Pearl has Little Flower perform this stunt for her neighbors, who roundly applaud the pig, all except for the Highchews, a stuffy couple from next door who are not amused. When Miss Pearl falls and injures her hip, it is up to Little Flower to get help. But how? Little Flower figures her trick might garner attention, but it is not until she plays dead in the middle of the road that anyone notices. Of course, in the middle of a busy road she could just as well have been standing on her head or dancing the polka as playing dead. Then, seemingly out of the blue, the Highchews agree to care for the pig (the one they didn’t find amusing) until Miss Pearl returns from the hospital. Later, readers learn that they took her in because they considered her a hero. Would they have given her the bum’s rush if she weren’t a hero? Have they turned a new leaf or are they opportunists? Little Flower is a simple pig, and her adventures should be equally so. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6480-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
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 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
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