This bland addition to the “unusual pets” genre misses most of the comedic possibilities and ends up a long way from...
An all-too-successful cereal promotion leads to surprises, some of them unpleasant, for two lads who send in coupons for a free lion.
As the British import starts out on a cautionary path, makes an abrupt turnabout, and then ends with what could be construed (on this side of the pond, anyway) as trademark infringement, it’s all rather a muddle. After urging readers to ignore cereal coupons, a young narrator describes how he and his brother spent a year’s allowance on 100 boxes of Mr. Flaky cornflakes only to see all their neighbors getting their lions first. Worse yet, they finally receive (because the company had run out of lions) a bad-tempered grizzly bear, a cranky crocodile, and finally a destructive gorilla. But then said animals are suddenly, inexplicably transformed from annoyances to assets (the croc, for instance, obligingly bites open cans). Furthermore, lions aren’t worth the trouble—“EVERYONE’S got one”— but check out the new prize offering: a genial, anthropomorphic tiger! Field’s lackadaisical scenes of tidy suburban chaos, swarms of mostly well-behaved (male) lions, and human figures with exaggerated expressions of dismay or irritation do little to boost the comedy or clarify the message, if any.
This bland addition to the “unusual pets” genre misses most of the comedic possibilities and ends up a long way from “grrrrreat.” (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8027-3836-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
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
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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