Try this different but tasty recipe for latkes.
Can a Hanukkah latke be potato-less?
Larry is an alligator with a food truck. His customers range from mice to moose, and all are eager eaters. Larry uses his granny’s recipe but wonders if there is more to a latke than potatoes, onions, and matzo meal. Holding his basket, he visits a busy farmers market, selecting peppers, tomatillos, and pears, among other ingredients—but no potatoes. The culinary results are unsuccessful. He continues to pursue a new recipe in trial-and-error fashion using the newfound ingredients. It’s a catalog of foodie delicacies: leek, Camembert, kale, quince, chard, and more. He produces “a soggy mess” and “mushy-gushy glop.” With failure over the stove about to befall him, Larry turns back to the tried-and-true potato, returning to the farmers market on a “gator-tater quest.” At last the something-old, something-new formula achieves success. It’s a Hanukkah party for all as his very happy and hungry friends celebrate the first night of the holiday with a new twist on a traditional treat. The cartoon illustrations are bold and brash, brimming over the pages with activity. With more to say about farmers markets and cooking than Hanukkah (though a short note discusses the miracle of the oil), this title gives readers who celebrate the holiday the sort of playful, largely secular experience found in countless Christmas books.
Try this different but tasty recipe for latkes. (recipe) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68115-565-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Apples & Honey Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 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
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