Fans of these sweet squirrels will devour this highly a-peel-ing volume.
Four brown squirrels have an accidental adventure at an apple farm.
When wiry, glasses-wearing Gramps is accidentally transported to the Crunchy Acres Apple-Processing Plant due to a snafu at the farmers market, it’s up to triangular Norma, thimble-shaped Belly, and peanut-shaped Little Bee to save the day. The trio is nothing if not resourceful, recruiting a friendly pigeon and the unnamed donut-truck operator from series opener Donut Feed the Squirrels (2020) to find them information about the apple farm and hitching a ride on a school bus that is taking kids to a field trip there. Arriving at Crunchy Acres, they must dodge apple-corers and outsmart factory line workers to find Gramps. Once reunited, the quartet makes it safely out of the apple factory intact only to realize they have landed in a pie at a pie-eating contest! Luckily they are rescued by Helen, an Asian-presenting student from the field trip, and all is well. Song’s quiet illustration style is consistently engaging but never overstimulating, featuring a natural watercolor palette, soft lines, and plenty of white space. Human characters, all secondary or background, come in a range of racial presentations and body shapes.
Fans of these sweet squirrels will devour this highly a-peel-ing volume. (Graphic fiction. 5-8)Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984895-85-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader!
Fun with friends makes for a great day.
Norbit, a salmon-colored worm with a pink kerchief, joyfully greets the day and everyone he encounters. “Hello, friends! It’s time for fun with the sun! Let’s play!” He and his menagerie of forest pals—including the sun, who grows limbs and descends from the sky—exuberantly engage in various forms of physical activity such as jumping, going down a slide, spinning around, and watching the clouds go by. Young readers will readily relate, as these are games that most children are familiar with. As day turns to night, Norbit says farewell to Sun and welcomes Moon with an invitation to continue the fun. Watkins has created a vivid world of movement and merriment. Her illustrations feature bright bursts of color that match the energy of the text, with most sentences ending in an exclamation point. The author/illustrator incorporates many elements that make for an ideal early-reading experience (despite the use of a contraction or two): art free from clutter, text consisting of words with only one or two syllables, and repetition and recurring bits, such as a continued game of hide-and-seek with Sun. Inspired by never-before-seen sketches from the Dr. Seuss Collection archives at the University of California San Diego, this is the first title for Seuss Studios, a new imprint for original stories from “emerging authors and illustrators” who “honor Seuss’s hallmark spirit of creativity and imagination.”
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader! (author's note) (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593646212
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Seuss Studios
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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
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