Limitations aside, this is a good starting point to help children to be flexible, focused, and relaxed.
Follow a blissed-out frog’s movement through 18 classic yoga poses.
Yoga Frog models each posture against a brightly colored background. Brief written instructions on the facing pages of each illustration do not explain exactly how to achieve “flow,” particularly how to gracefully switch sides, but the frog’s skinny stick limbs make it easy to identify the ideal position. His two-tone green body and expressive, wide eyes add humor. A final “Note for Parents” reminds them of the benefits of yoga and the importance of breathing through the nose while moving through the poses. A fold-out poster repeats each of the postures, though not in the order shown in the previous pages. Yoga Frog begins with mountain pose, moves through more challenging postures, and ends in the resting pose. The Sanskrit term for each posture is included below the English name. Chambers does not always use the traditional translations. Warrior (virabhadrasana) is called “giraffe”; child’s pose (balasana) becomes “hawk in nest”; hero (virasana) turns to “wolf”; rabbit, (sasangasana) is modified to turtle; the spinal twist (ardha matsyendrasana) is inexplicably changed to “caterpillar”; and bound angle (baddha konasana) is whimsically renamed “butterfly.” This may be confusing as young yogis encounter more standard yoga instruction.
Limitations aside, this is a good starting point to help children to be flexible, focused, and relaxed. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7624-6467-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Running Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
