Bear-y fun.
A story about a bear begins...but the bear has had enough.
The “old brown bear” derails the story, much to the narrator’s perturbation, and proclaims that bears are exhausted by constantly having to “perform” all these stories whenever “you” open a book, when they’d rather be “sleeping, snoozing or napping.” Bears quit! At first, the narrator gets even by reciting ridiculous antics for the bear to act out, like wearing a tutu while riding a tiny bicycle. The bear makes an offer—get another, “better” animal star. But the narrator dismisses all the candidates the bear puts forth, citing certain flaws for each. An echidna’s “too spiky,” a dodo “too extinct,” a star-nosed mole “too…whoa!” Once the bear runs through all the animals in its contacts, the narrator claims bears are the natural stars for stories because they “are just right.” They strike a compromise: The bear gets to hibernate while some other animals take over key roles in the tale of “Goldilocks & the Three Bears.” This metanarrative is made especially entertaining by its conversational tone. Two easily distinguishable, but not fussily designed, text styles demarcate the two speakers of the book. The art is reminiscent of Jon Klassen’s, with the animals in predominantly static poses against plain backgrounds, but with stronger colors. The creatures are highly geometric in shape, and their perfectly round eyes manage to convey heaps of emotions. The inclusion of some nonstandard animals in the cast also helps to sustain interest.
Bear-y fun. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68464-084-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
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