Seasoned beginning readers will enjoy the silliness and empathize with the turtle’s wildly invasive predicament.
A fast-paced rhyming text describes the scene in omniscient narration, which is supplemented by speech bubbles to relate the afflicted turtle’s reactions. “A flock of ducks / flies in a row. / They look and see / a pond below.” As they alight, the startled turtle asks, “Who are you guys?” As the ducks grow more and more rowdy in their aquatic antics, the incensed turtle exclaims, “Hey! Cut it out!” Another two groups of ducks arrive, the first set the members of the rock-’n’-roll band the Screaming Ducks and the next the crew of a food truck amusingly called Freddy Drake’s Pies and Cakes. Now “all kinds of ducks / are on the scene. / Old ducks, young ducks, / even green.” All the ducks are of the white, domestic variety; the green refers to the vexed turtle, who protests several times, “I am not a duck.” Cartoon drawings with thick, black outlines add details to the zaniness, which eventually evolves into a pie-throwing spectacle that completely frustrates the poor turtle and forces everyone to “DUCK!” A thorough cleanup ensues under the turtle’s watchful eyes before, much to his relief, everyone leaves…but then a Camp Muckaduck school bus pulls up and disgorges a (multiracial) slew of human children. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-13-inch double-page spreads viewed at 75% of actual size.)
Seasoned beginning readers will enjoy the silliness and empathize with the turtle’s wildly invasive predicament. (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-22291-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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