A visually attractive rendition with an intensifying, onomatopoeic text that repays the practice it requires for reading...
Sibling wolf pups leave their pack to explore the forest amid the raucous sounds of its various creatures.
The quiet woods can be a noisy place if you stop to listen to the myriad voices calling out. The constant “chorus of chirps and clicks and chits that peep and repeat” is a conversation of sorts. “Who’s there? / Over here, over here. / Stay away! / You there? / Feed me! Feed me! / That’s mine! / All’s well….” Frisky wolf pups bound through the forest playing and chasing each other, adding their “yip-yap-yowls” to the “chit-chitter-chattering” of squirrels, the “stomp-stomp-stamps” of a buck, and the “scree-scree-screeches” of a hawk. The rhythmic, lyrical text builds cumulatively from page to page, adding the onomatopoeic vocalizations as each new animal is introduced, at times presenting a tongue-twisting challenge. It all continues until a long, loud howl from the pups’ father elicits the pups’ “yip-yip-yippeeeeee! grr-row-row! row-row!” response, signaling a joyful reunion of the wolf family against a crescendo of boisterous banter. Lovely realistic paintings in earthy hues of greens, browns, and yellows evoke hectic daytime woodland activity before eventually settling down to a soothing nighttime conclusion. Pups snuggle with their mother, and “All’s well.”
A visually attractive rendition with an intensifying, onomatopoeic text that repays the practice it requires for reading aloud. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6665-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
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
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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