A timely celebration of individual difference.
Walter feels out of place among the other sharks at school.
Walter’s been looking forward to school all summer, but a class photo has him in a panic: Everyone’s teeth are huge. How can Walter, with his “teeny tiny teeth,” make friends with the likes of Manny Mako and Greta Great White? The whale shark spends the morning worrying, but an idea strikes him at lunchtime. He scoops up some matching seashells to enhance his smile, but after one bite of his sandwich, they all come tumbling out. “Oh Mackerel!” His seaweed teeth are similarly unsuccessful, and his shrimp teeth flee (“SWIM for it!”) as soon as Walter opens his mouth to read aloud. Dejected, Walter heads home, where his mother waits with some reassurance: Walter doesn’t need teeth like the other sharks’ because whale sharks eat different food. (This important scientific fact is only hinted at in the plankton-and–chocolate chip cookies she serves Walter as an after-school snack.) “Having teeny tiny teeth doesn’t mean you don’t fit in. It’s what makes you special.” Quintanilla’s illustrations play up the other sharks’ big, pointy teeth (one precocious “sharky-gartener” even sports braces) and Walter’s roller coaster of excitement and disappointment/embarrassment. The other sharks laugh, seemingly at Walter’s expense. The variably weighted, sans-serif typeface may make it hard for new readers to parse some letters.
A timely celebration of individual difference. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4867-1809-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flowerpot Press
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
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
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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