There are roadblocks aplenty, but this still could please hardcore seek-and-find fans.
Mouse needs to catch Gorilla! Can readers help to get him through the maze of streets in time?
Gorilla drives fast through the busy marketplaces, construction sites, farmland, mountains, and more, but Mouse and his motorcycle are persistent. Bright, busy, Richard Scarry–like compositions create mazes of roads, cars, and critters that lead from page to page as readers are given clues—abetted by strategically placed arrows—as to how Mouse can catch up to Gorilla. Multiple members of a cartoon menagerie reappear throughout but not on every page, making for a fun scavenger hunt as big-eared Mouse chases the fedora-clad Gorilla, whose light beige face, broad chin, and lack of neck are evocative of characters from Family Guy and American Dad. The white arrows are sometimes necessary, as in a very complicated market scene, but at other times they don’t make much sense. In one river scene, for instance, they plot the path on planks of wood laid between boats; here the path is obvious, but readers may be more concerned at the notion of motoring over boaters than delighted. Just why is Mouse in pursuit of Gorilla? That’s benign, but a visual subplot involving a different gorilla seen lurking with a bag of cash on many spreads before being cuffed by turtle cops disappointingly plays into negative stereotypes surrounding black people, apes, and criminality.
There are roadblocks aplenty, but this still could please hardcore seek-and-find fans. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-21220-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.
Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?
Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564526
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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