Friendship is enduring in this hilarious adventure just right for independent young readers.
Despite best intentions, Taylor has been unable to achieve his dream of exploring the world, as described in series opener Sydney & Taylor Explore the Whole Wide World (2021).
Taylor is a hedgehog with many Big Ideas; his best friend, Sydney, is a skunk who much prefers a quiet existence in their well-appointed burrow. Taylor is brave, until he isn’t, while calm, supportive Sydney is usually the one who rescues him from his follies. This time Taylor’s Big Idea is so outrageous that Sydney laughs at him, deeply hurting his feelings. Taylor has decided that he is going to fly. A plan promulgated by some friendly birds works for a while, but Taylor hits panic position and Sydney breaks the fall. Deer send him to a bat, a mammal that flies. Taylor is pulled up on the roof with an umbrella tied to him for webbing. But he panics again, and Sydney breaks this fall also. A flying toy buzzes over and lands near them, giving Sydney an even Bigger Idea. A few safety measures, some near disasters, and more Big Ideas later, and the friends are happily safe at home after a successful conclusion. Davies tells the tale with great humor in vivid, expressive syntax, working in a few animal facts along the way. Taylor and Sydney are genuine friends who accept each other’s idiosyncrasies. Bright illustrations appear in vignettes, single-, and double-page spreads, closely following the action, capturing the characters’ every changing emotion in expressive faces and body language, and adding many delightful and intricate details.
Friendship is enduring in this hilarious adventure just right for independent young readers. (Animal fantasy. 6-9)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-10635-7
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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