A veritable feast for word connoisseurs.
Can one literally eat one’s words?
ZigZag, a green-and-yellow crocodilian, loves words so much he actually tastes and feels them while playfully rolling them around in his mouth. Swivel is “slippery and slightly sour”; bulb has “a thick, purple taste.” One day he visits his friends Kit and Kat—anthropomorphic cats—and they all play with tambourines, a word whose juiciness ZigZag loves. Without thinking, he swallows the word’s five vowels; all that remains is “tmbrn.” ZigZag is heartsick to discover that thanks to his voracious appetite, every word in the world now contains only consonants. Subsequent pages hilariously demonstrate what words look like without those vital five letters. ZigZag takes quick action and manages to rescue all the vowels from family and friends—and even readers—and in alphabetical order, too. As ZigZag declares at the end, “What miraculousness!” (Note the vowels.) This cheery story about delighting in words and wordplay will appeal to readers who enjoy increasing their vocabularies and testing the sounds and feel of new terms. In an illuminating author’s note in which she invites children to play with language, Paschkis admits she “loves words.” She incorporates numerous ones in her illustrations, many containing multiple vowels; these gambol gleefully throughout her colorful, lively artwork featuring all-animal characters and intricate patterns. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A veritable feast for word connoisseurs. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781592704026
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.
Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?
Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564526
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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