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 retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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