Purr-fect fare for cat lovers, with a bit of sensitivity training slipped in.
An extreme case of kitty charisma, based on a true story.
With significant but logical embroidering, this tale recounts the arrival of a small alley cat at the elegant Hamilton Hotel, just as the 1947 Greater St. Louis Cat Club Show is getting underway. Though given a hostile reception by the stuck-up cat owners (if not their well-groomed pets), the tiny stray not only gets a warm greeting and plenty of snacks from the hotel staff, but comes back at the show’s end to charm the judges into awarding a pair of blue ribbons and to win both a name and a home from the hotel’s hostess, Marcella Duffy. As the author notes in an afterword, only the hotel staff would have included people of color at that time, and so it is that Duffy and all the human guests are white-presenting, while most of the bustling kitchen staff, led by a fictive chef and his daughter, are darker-skinned. Younger audiences may not notice the divide until it’s pointed out, but they’ll see it on a second run-through for sure, and the endpapers sandwiching this historical anecdote do offer a more racially diverse gallery of cat owners fondling their furry charges. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Purr-fect fare for cat lovers, with a bit of sensitivity training slipped in. (photo) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781250864765
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
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
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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