A delectable dish with morsels of empathy, fair dealing, and even math in the list of ingredients.
Max the mouse makes pancakes for his four younger sibs but runs out of ingredients before he can make one for himself. What to do?
Clever use of partial pages turns a potential downer into a sweet opportunity for sharing in this Japanese import via Canada. First, of course, Max has to make batter and cook it just so—shown step by step with vertically split half pages in Nishiuchi’s bright, blocky pictures—and discover his mistake by dishing the pancakes out. Noticing his exaggerated expression of misery as he regards his empty plate, the others generously cut their pancakes into quarters and pass them over one by one…but wait, that leaves all five mice with three quarters and one piece extra. Who gets it? The fortuitous arrival of Mommy Mouse solves the problem neatly and nicely. Though the mice eat their pancakes without toppings in the illustrations, the appended recipe (which properly includes a cautionary note about adult supervision) closes with an entirely appropriate recommendation to serve with butter and maple syrup. Stack toddler-friendly tributes like Lotta Nieminen’s Pancakes! An Interactive Recipe Book (2016) and Kathryn Smith’s Pancakes With Grandma, illustrated by Seb Braun (2020), atop this yummy outing.
A delectable dish with morsels of empathy, fair dealing, and even math in the list of ingredients. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-2-89802-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: CrackBoom! Books
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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 light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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