Even children who can’t yet read will get at least a portion of the joke.
Ten birds frolic in fractured count-down number rhymes.
Ten birds, most with identifying hats and cloaks, open this series of misfortunes in a wordless double-page spread showing a concert that, from their expressions, must be more cacophonous than musical. Then disaster happens: “Ten fine birds were sitting in a line / When the fence got smashed, / which was not a good sign, / So then there were NIGN.” Similar calamities follow, each with its ending number misspelled to fit the rhyme. The verses appear on the left-hand pages, along with a pictorial hint about which bird will disappear. On the facing page, bordered at the top and bottom with white, are Gebert’s illustrations of each catastrophe. (Some details are left for readers’ imaginations, as when the “six scared birds” encounter a crocodile.) But all ends well. Readers will have to judge for themselves whether it’s the parent owl or child that leaves the nest to “WUN,” but the eggs inside miraculously hatch all 10 again. They end the tale with a quiet picnic. Wilson's clever translation of the German Mit großem Krach: Vom Reimen auf Biegen und Brechen (2012) preserves the tortured rhymes and most of the mispronunciations of the numbers.
Even children who can’t yet read will get at least a portion of the joke. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4100-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
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