The furry soulmates who met, separated and reunited in Big Wolf & Little Wolf (2009) suffer another temporary parting. When Little Wolf chases after a luscious orange that Big Wolf throws a little too hard and then doesn’t come back, Big Wolf once again feels pangs of loneliness. He sets out to find his small blue companion—into a city that Tallec’s crowded, blocky, shadowed street scenes render particularly soulless, impersonal and, as darkness falls, scary. Big Wolf’s feelings are subtly cued but felt with uncommon sharpness: “Big Wolf went cold. He didn’t dare to think anything. Certainly not that Little Wolf wanted to leave him, or that he would never return, or any of the other strange and unbelievable things he might think.” Little Wolf, tubby and silent throughout, is an enigmatic figure, but the much larger Big Wolf is rendered with a nose, ears and body of sinuous, exaggerated length, and the changing curves and angles of his body language clearly capture the depth and intensity of his emotions. Despite a few disconnects between the text and the pictures, even younger readers will be caught up in Big Wolf’s odyssey and rejoice when he at last tracks down his errant buddy, and (after he gently tosses him the orange) they “lived happily together for a long, long time.” (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59270-106-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
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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