While human adoptions may never be this random and unexpected (and have been covered by the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis and...
In lively rhyming couplets that beg to be read aloud, Sierra’s zoo animals are back, this time proving that it takes a village zoo to raise children…especially when those children are adopted.
The new batch of zoo babies finds the tree kangaroo and the panda couple bemoaning their lack of offspring. But while the crocodiles list all the reasons why babies are awful (“mountains of poo” are mentioned), they simply cannot give their children to the pandas, since they “LOVE THEM COMPLETELY.” The tree kangaroo jumps at the opportunity to tuck a mystery egg into her pouch to hatch. Her penguin chick, while not what she expected or dreamed of, is just perfect. Meanwhile, the still-childless pandas get a surprise of their own in the form of a stray kitten. Both of the new little families are tenderly watched over by the other zoo inhabitants. The “pandacat” and “pengaroo” are each the answer to their parents’ wishes, as is more than evident from both the text and Brown’s watercolor, gouache and colored-pencil illustrations. Bright colors and bold patterns fill the pages, but the true stars are the animals, whose mutual affection shines through on every page.
While human adoptions may never be this random and unexpected (and have been covered by the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis and Rose Lewis), this nicely captures the cross-species bonds animals sometimes form. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-93178-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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
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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
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