Fascinating, eerie…perhaps frustrating—be ready for conversation.
A complex, stunning Portuguese import.
What begins as a fanciful story about a lone girl with straight, black hair and skin of an unnatural coral hue takes a turn toward the mysterious and, perhaps, dystopian. The jacket art and case cover—done, as is the rest of the book, in a bold, saturated palette—present a striking depiction of what may be read as a zoo or animal preserve. But then readers learn that “Nina likes to visit the jungle city,” and they see a small, stick figure of a girl precariously hanging from a large, metal structure and gazing over the landscape. Ensuing pages show her interacting with animals in an increasingly bizarre setting that melds the urban with the wild. Digital illustrations have the look of prints, broad, flat applications of color overlapping in a way that emphasizes how the wild has taken over. No other humans appear, but Nina seems at peace and enjoys reading to the animals. In a metafictive twist, “the story the animals like best… / is this one: the one about them. / The story takes place in a quiet spot… / where humans once lived… / and where nature now runs wild.” The book never explains what happened to the people of this city nor where Nina comes from and returns to. While some readers may be intrigued and provoked to speculation, others may find this ambiguity unsatisfying or troubling.
Fascinating, eerie…perhaps frustrating—be ready for conversation. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7029-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
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