The year’s second book to shine the spotlight on New York City’s most famous red-tailed hawk provides fun images but misses the narrative mark. McCarthy populates her illustrations with her characteristically pop-eyed cartoon people, here joined by comically round-eyed hawks. The text details the appearance of Pale Male in Manhattan, his romance with Lola and the subsequent building of their nest and the hatching and fledging of their chicks. The avid attention paid to these urban hawks by the city’s birdwatching community receives some attention as well, but aside from some uncertainty about the ability of the chicks to fly across the street to the park (which they do in the middle of the night), there’s no narrative tension to enliven the plot. Inexplicably, the story avoids the stuff-of-legends conflict with the hawk-hating residents of 927 Fifth Avenue that Jeanette Winter chronicles so successfully in The Tale of Pale Male (March 2007). Although this story appears in the lengthy author’s note (along with a “Learn More About Central Park” featurette and a jam-packed bibliography), its curious absence from the body of the text leaves readers with little to care about. (Picture book/nonfiction. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3359-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2007
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
Turkey’s in the “kind of trouble where it’s almost Thanksgiving...and you’re the main course.” Accordingly, Turkey tries on disguise after disguise, from horse to cow to pig to sheep, at each iteration being told that he looks nothing like the animal he’s trying to mimic (which is quite true, as Harper’s quirky watercolors make crystal clear). He desperately squeezes a red rubber glove onto his head to pass as a rooster, only to overhear the farmer suggest a poultry plan B when he’s unable to turn up the turkey. Turkey’s horrified expression as he stands among the peppers and tomatoes—in November? Chalk it up to artistic license—is priceless, but his surroundings give him an idea. Good fun, but it may lead to a vegetarian table or two. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7614-5529-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2009
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