Adoptees may appreciate the message; introverts may want to look elsewhere.
Once Henrietta the elephant’s quiet is interrupted, there may be no going back to being satisfied with solitude.
Henrietta’s a classic introvert. She loves her Darjeeling and the morning paper. She loves swimming below the noisy geese at the lake and savoring the peace underwater. But one day, the elephant gets “a little too lost” in her thoughts, and she bonks her head on a piling. She bandages the “goose egg” she feels on her head with her trunk. (In-the-know listeners will be screaming with delight.) Henrietta’s brought up short when her egg hatches and she finds herself a “Mama!” When she is unable to return the imprinted baby to the nest, Henrietta takes her in, but her peace and solitude are shattered, and that only worsens as Goose grows. Finally, the clever elephant uses a brush and paint to transform her head into a mama goose, and she teaches the bird all she needs to know about being a goose. Goose flies off in the fall, but Henrietta’s quiet is now emptiness…until Goose returns with goslings of her own. Wong’s watercolor, colored pencil, gouache, and Photoshop illustrations are delightfully spare, keeping the focus on the expressive elephant and her dilemma. Henrietta is the only character with personality; Goose (and her goslings) is merely cute. While a sweet tale, it carries with it the rather overbearing assumption that introverts are, unbeknownst to them, probably actually lonely.
Adoptees may appreciate the message; introverts may want to look elsewhere. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-553-51157-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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
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