A lackluster effort to latch on to a stalwart classic.
A new adventure for the little white dog with black spots, rendered “in the styles” of the original series’ author and illustrator.
Opening as usual—“Harry was a white dog with black spots who liked everything…”—the tale finds Harry “not pleased” that a visiting guinea pig is “getting all the attention.” He regains his top-dog status after sneaking into school and (somehow) opening its cage during show-and-tell, then tracking it through the playground, past a shushing librarian, and into the cafeteria, where it is sitting on a table munching veggies. The children’s praise for this “clever detective work” settles Harry’s ruffled fur so he can happily get “back to his old tricks.” After this bland story, readers may well be happy to return to those old tricks as well. Aside from tinting the skin of Harry’s family slightly (they now have peach skin and rosy cheeks but still present White) and introducing some racial diversity to the school’s group scenes Joshaghani’s illustrations don’t add anything fresh or updated either. But this is meant, after all, to be a nostalgia trip. Starting with the cover picture, the figures, furnishings, dress, décor, and even the overall compositions echo Margaret Bloy Graham’s. At least this offers the comfort of familiarity…and the actual author and illustrator get title-page credits (albeit in much smaller type than Graham and Gene Zion). (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 77% of actual size.)
A lackluster effort to latch on to a stalwart classic. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-274773-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
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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