Don’t sleep on this laugh-out-loud title for the newest readers.
Lots of laughs at the expense of a sleepy cat.
Poor Nat the Cat wants to take a nap, but the voice of an offstage narrator keeps him from doing so for most of the story. When readers first meet Nat, the cartoon feline is seen standing with his eyes closed below a speech balloon reading “zzzzzz….” Next, the narrator announces, “This is Nat. Nat is a Cat,” and one of Nat’s closed eyes pops open. When the narrator tells us, “Nat the Cat is taking a nap,” Nat retorts, “No, Nat the Cat WAS taking a nap.” Background details are kept to a minimum, providing rest for the eye and allowing the images to support textual meaning. Meanwhile, subtle font and wording changes combined with slight adjustments to character expressions and placement result in text that reinforces decoding skills through repetition and making the simple, funny narrative accessible to emerging readers. Humor increases when Pat the Rat shows up—not as prey for Nat to chase but as another sleepy character who wants to take a nap, too—and by book’s end, both characters get some needed shut-eye.
Don’t sleep on this laugh-out-loud title for the newest readers. (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781665918916
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon Spotlight
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 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
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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