Such resolute cutesiness can have a dreary effect, which, alas, is true in this view of the doomed French queen as observed by her pug dog. What happened to Marie Antoinette at the guillotine appears only in the author’s note: Sébastian the pug, who refers to himself as moi like Miss Piggy does, accompanies the 14-year-old royal from Austria to France, where she is married to the king’s grandson. The dog, mostly ignored, isn’t happy until Marie Antoinette’s daughter Thérèse is of an age to play, when the now-queen has borne a second child. Versailles is not cozy for children or dogs, and visions of the queen’s sumptuous raiment and impossible hairdos contrast with Thérèse in the mirrored halls holding the dog or running in the gardens in parallel to her mother’s childhood days. Gouache in matte pastel colors illustrate this lighthearted image of Versailles populated by figures with rosebud mouths and doll-like features. Will appeal to those who love princess stories and can understand that money, jewels and fancy clothes don’t necessarily bring happiness. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-58234-958-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2006
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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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