A dreamy visual narrative to brighten winter evenings.
After a father and son become separated while hunting in a snowstorm, forest animals aid the boy.
The lost lad sleeps in a sheltering cave below animal constellations, his red-and-white polka-dot scarf his pillow. Waking in a shaft of light, he’s regarded by an interspecies crowd that includes a bear, an owl, a badger, a deer, foxes, rabbits, and more. Panel close-ups amusingly register their mutual surprise. The bear and boy strike a bond: The boy shares a candy, and they drink from a waterfall. In scenes recalling Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman, dining and dancing ensue. Boy and bear add to cave paintings that themselves evoke those at Lascaux. When the child’s father-son depiction evinces longing, the boy gets a predawn ride on the bear’s back, to a reunion with his searching father. Sequential illustrations show the boy facilitating gratitude rather than violence toward the bear. As other animals emerge from the forest, a raccoon carrying the boy’s left-behind scarf, early yellow flowers bloom along the home’s fence. Johnson’s wordless pictures capably narrate, foretell, and embellish the story. The blizzard’s feathery flakes include silhouettes of the animals encountered later. The cozy home’s family photos show an absent woman, her red-and-white top echoed in the boy’s scarf, socks, a chair pillow, and the final spread’s springtime butterfly. Mother, father, and child all present white.
A dreamy visual narrative to brighten winter evenings. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-571-33928-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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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