Fascinating shark information in a muddled package.
A mother and her shark-enthusiast son don’t quite see eye to eye.
Young, white, redheaded Stevie wants nothing more than to act like a shark, especially if it annoys his mother. When his mother (also white) asks him to stop inhaling his pancakes at breakfast, Stevie pauses only to reply that “bull sharks tear apart food with their teeth. All fifty rows of them!” When she begs him to sit still, Stevie merely quips that whale sharks die if they stop moving. Throughout the entire day, Stevie’s mom’s earnest pleas to her son for good (or just human) behavior are met with fact after fact about sharks. But when the day comes to an end and Stevie settles down with a final sleepy whisper that he loves sharks, his mom quietly admits that she loves them too. Despite Montatore’s illustrations subsumed in energy that aligns with Stevie’s enthusiasm, the almost manic spreads seem to reflect his mother’s frenzied, put-upon perspective, making the narrative more hers than Stevie’s. Without any kind of transition from the narrative’s conclusion, the remainder of the book showcases an epilogue of several more shark facts, and though each compares to a recognizable piece of kid life (“no early bedtime for them!”; “hide-and-seek champions!”), the two parts of the book feel unintegrated and spliced together.
Fascinating shark information in a muddled package. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5107-0884-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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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