A beguiling, original creation myth that explains why bats hang upside down in large groups. The Mother of All Things finds the world dull and gray, so she molds a perfect ball from clay and tosses it into the sky to become the sun. Her pockets and skirts and sleeves are full of seeds and creatures, and she populates the wide world with them. Seeing that the animals and plants needed to rest from the bright sun, she weaves a curtain of ferns and branches to draw across the sky, ``and night was born.'' The night creatures—owl, panther, coyote, sloth, and bats—find the night too dark, but the Mother of All Things charges them to solve the problem themselves. With gumption, cooperation, and courage, they do so, creating a sky full of stars and bringing the story to a heartening close. The rich, deep pastel illustrations use the figures of plants and animals in ways that stretch and bend the picture space. The Mother of All Things is a wondrous figure herself, with a ripe body, earth-colored robe, and abundant, plaited hair. The text is on the long side, but children's fascination with animals in general and mysterious bats in particular will keep them enthralled. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-531-30005-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997
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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
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BOOK REVIEW
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