A good start for budding naturalists, leading naturally to more populous surveys such as Jinny Johnson’s Atlas of Animals...
A select cast of animals—many on or under flaps and shaped pages—poses in seven characteristic habitats.
Printed on sturdy stock, the painted galleries, inset flaps, spinners, and a closing pop-up mountain will stand up to the heavy use it invites. In natural settings ranging from rain forest and desert to both fresh and salt water, Wren places realistically depicted wildlife (many of the creatures looking directly at viewers) in groups that leave plenty of room for Pang’s identifying labels and sometimes-arresting comments: “The slow-moving sloth visits the forest floor just once a week to do a poo”; “Don’t mess with the meat-eating piranha and its razor-sharp teeth!”; “BEAVER: This little feller cuts down trees with its sharp teeth.” Some of the animals, such as the giant desert hairy scorpion, the panther chameleon, and a regal tiger, are particularly memorable. Inset booklets offer further introductions to, for instance, “Bugs” or “Creatures of the Deep,” and cutout windows with spinners show stages of frog and butterfly metamorphoses. Aside from a confusing use of the term “hemisphere” in the introductory spread, the information is dependable if light for the overall word count.
A good start for budding naturalists, leading naturally to more populous surveys such as Jinny Johnson’s Atlas of Animals (2013). (Informational pop-up book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-944530-03-7
Page Count: 24
Publisher: 360 Degrees
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
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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