Although fans of Scaredy’s hypercontrolled world will eagerly devour each page, this may not be the best title to introduce...
Popular Scaredy Squirrel sports fangs as he beams from the cover of this “Safety Guide for Scaredies.”
Following the format of his previous safety guide (Scaredy Squirrel Prepares for Christmas, 2012), a preface warns that “Halloween is creeping up quickly, and it’s time to gather the courage to face the ghoulish festivities!” Eight brief chapters follow, offering over-the-top advice on decorations, costumes, trick-or-treating, candy and party planning. Of course, “if all else fails…play dead.” The mix of diagrams (how to make it through a haunted house as quickly as possible), charts (scariness factor of costumes), lists (“unscary black items to decorate with” include Black Forest cakes and bowling balls) and step-by-step instructions (how to carve a friendly-faced pumpkin) offer kids new ways of reading information. Good tips (inspecting candy before eating it) and comically bad (play gloomy organ music to slow the tempo of a party) intermingle and are delivered with the same earnest tone by the always-cautious, comically overprepared and endearing squirrel. Watt certainly has hit on a formula that provides readers with a familiar but guaranteed-to-be-hilarious experience.
Although fans of Scaredy’s hypercontrolled world will eagerly devour each page, this may not be the best title to introduce a child to the series; start them with one of his stories instead. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-894786-87-4
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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