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WHAT’S THE MAGIC WORD?

Most pre-readers know the answer to that one—and they’d better, to make sense of this breezy (in several senses) but confusing effort. A sudden wind carries newly hatched Little Chick off to a cow’s stall, where his request for shelter is met with a counter-request for the Magic Word. No sooner does he learn that it’s not “Peep-peep” but “Moo-moo,” than that wind sweeps him away to a beehive—where the Word’s not “Moo-moo” but “Buzz-buzz.” And so on, past hound (“Bow-wow”), owl (“Hoo-hoo”) and pig (“Oink-oink”), until Little Chick fetches up back at the nest, where his mother informs him that the Magic Word is none of the above—it’s “Please.” Advocates of an English-only curriculum, take note. Little Chick and his mom look like ruffled, diminutive cousins of Big Bird in Winborn’s simple farmyard scenes, but there the resemblance to Sesame Street’s multicultural viewpoint ends. (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2005

ISBN: 0-06-000578-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004

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THE WONKY DONKEY

Hee haw.

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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

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BECAUSE YOUR DADDY LOVES YOU

Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: May 23, 2005

ISBN: 0-618-00361-4

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Clarion Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005

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