Cuddly, funny comics will charm the crankiest of readers.
A crabby chicken and her worm BFF achieve friendship goals.
Crowds, trampolines, baths, skipping a nap—there’s plenty that makes Chicken cranky. But “tiny and tickly” Speedy Worm makes Cranky Chicken actively “un-cranky.” Libraries also make Chicken happy, even though “Crankiness is allowed” there. Honestly, Speedy and Chicken are such great friends that dour-looking, unibrowed Chicken spends most of the book looking pretty upbeat. In one story, Speedy and Chicken have different ideas about how to take a nap, but they’re still best friends. In another, Speedy has an existential crisis (are they really a worm, or could they be a cobra, a giraffe, or a brontosaurus?), but the duo’s friendship reigns supreme—indeed, they are “Best Feathered Family forever.” All the while, they help each other learn. Speedy asks Chicken how she knows she’s a hen and not a rooster, and—unibrow thoughtfully cocked up—Chicken explains it’s because she just feels like a hen. Simple shapes and linework bring to life a wonderfully expressive pair in this sweetly silly graphic novel. Chapters are separated by funny vignettes; one especially hilarious page finds Chicken and Speedy in costumes—Chicken as Princess Leia with Speedy as Yoda; Chicken as a worm and Speedy as a chicken; and both dressed as “Stripy Lost Guy” in Where’s Waldo–style red-and-white tops and beanies.
Cuddly, funny comics will charm the crankiest of readers. (Graphic early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9781665914550
Page Count: 116
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 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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