Puzzling.
When Arno loses his wooden horse, everyone helps hunt for the small carving.
In pedestrian verse, the search unfolds: “Back to the bush, / we ran from here to there. / Mercy said, ‘Your little horse, / it could be anywhere!’ ” The word bush and some cockatoos roosting on a playhouse provide clues to the Australian setting and origin of this book. Since few of the several characters depicted are named, children will speculate about relationships among the multiracial group Arno’s seen with. Mercy and Arno have the same freckles, beige skin, and dark hair, but whether the brown-skinned and White-presenting kids and adults with them are all members of a blended family is unspoken. Grandpa, who also presents White, is introduced as the now-deceased carver of the horse. That’s what makes it special. After Arno dreams about his grandpa, he knows where to find the horse. Several elements of this happy ending require unpacking. With no clear segue between dream and waking, Arno is depicted running out alone into the night. He finds the horse buried under some tree roots, “just near the longest bridge”—which is not pictured in any of the prior illustrations. Grandpa is seen fording the river, both in Arno’s memory of his grandfather’s stories and in his dream. Does it matter? The book’s emphasis on the relationship between the older man and the young boy is comforting, but the narrative gaps tantalize.
Puzzling. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-950354-46-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scribble
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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