A serviceable contribution to cumulative-song collections or surprise-ending collections.
A familiar cumulative folk song gets a mild tweak.
This time, the setting is a lake floor. “There’s a hole in the log on the bottom of the lake”; “There’s a frog in the hole in the log on the bottom of the lake”; and so on. It’s better sung than recited, and musical notation can be found at the end. On the frog is a hair (one corkscrew curl growing upward), and then a fly on the hair, and then a gnat on the fly. The underwater atmosphere is dark green, with brown, beige, and lighter greens. Long’s acrylic-and–colored-pencil illustrations are an odd mix of styles: The frog is cartoony, especially when grinning and licking its lips in anticipation of a fly-gnat feast, whereas members of a school of goldfish are delicate and luminescent. The climax is a sudden “uh-oh. Chomp, snap, gulp!”—with an intriguing partial ambiguity about exactly who gets chomped. Throughout, a tiny snail and turtle provide wry counterpoint to the verse’s formal structure. The turtle offers commentary, sometimes amusing (when the song uses the lyric “hole,” he asks, “A whole what? It just looks empty to me”), sometimes confusing (he punnily grumps that someone must be “too cool for school” when, at that moment, the accused snail is joining a school of fish), and slapstick humor (“Dial 911! Turtle on its back! Emergency! Turtle freaking out!”).
A serviceable contribution to cumulative-song collections or surprise-ending collections. (musical notation, song lyrics) (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-16399-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 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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