“Yip-yip-yip-yip!” indeed, for this sympathetic portrayal of a not-often-celebrated creature who shares our world.
By the light of the moon, a coyote quietly prowls through a suburban neighborhood, hunting for food for her family.
This simple, lyrical text stresses the senses: Coyote listens, she sniffs, she looks. Short sentences and long pauses, indicated by page turns, mirror the animal's stealthy progress and sudden attacks. Ibatouilline's shadowy paintings enhance the tension. Each detail of fur, feathers, and foliage is clearly delineated, yet almost all the action takes place in the near-dark. Finally, just as the sun comes up, Coyote successfully takes a turkey. Watched through the window by a curly-haired, light-brown–skinned child, the hunter sings, "Yeeeep-yip-yip-yoooo!" Two pages of “Coyote Facts” at the end offer further information about these wolflike predators’ ubiquity and flexibility in food habits and habitat and suggest further reading and websites. The dark illustrations and potentially upsetting subject matter make this title more suited for lap-sharing than storytime, but the author and illustrator have handled the predator-prey encounters sensitively. A striking double-page spread shows the coyote leaping on a mouse—“POUNCE!”—but the mouse escapes. The turkey’s feathers obscure his final moments in the coyote’s mouth. Even collections that include Cheryl Blackford and Laurie Caple’s Hungry Coyote (2015) will want these incredible illustrations.
“Yip-yip-yip-yip!” indeed, for this sympathetic portrayal of a not-often-celebrated creature who shares our world. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62672-041-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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