If expectations are modest, this latest addition to the series is mildly amusing.
A pampered, plump pussycat resists frosty fun.
Once again, the adorable but recalcitrant Flubby asserts his individuality. His devoted brown-skinned young owner struggles to please him despite his obstinacy. Like most felines, Flubby finds winter trying. When it snows “a little,” then “a lot,” the child wants to play in the wet white stuff, but Flubby finds it too cold—first, for his feet, then for his back and head. Each time, he retreats to the warm house. The child resourcefully produces tiny kitty boots, a coat, a hat, and a scarf. Finally, properly enveloped, Flubby is not too cold, does not go back inside, and plays in the snow while his owner creatively constructs a snow-cat. Compared to the earlier books in the series, which use characteristic cat behavior to set up the surprise ending, this one finishes anticlimactically, not to say unrealistically. (A cat docilely allowing himself to be repeatedly dressed up is rare indeed, and the cat’s back half is still bare and presumably cold.) But the words are simple and repetitive, and the pictures are engaging. Flubby’s perfectly round golden eyes and ballooning belly will evoke smiles, and when Flubby is depicted sitting with rear legs splayed and a dubious expression on his face, readers might laugh despite the predictable text.
If expectations are modest, this latest addition to the series is mildly amusing. (Easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780593523391
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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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