Alpacas may be hilarious, but they make lousy allegories.
Alfonso the alpaca is surrounded by books, and not one is about an alpaca.
Alfonso’s lawn is covered with enormous piles of titles about bears, like Be More Bear! He knows what he must do to remedy this: write a book starring a charming alpaca. Unfortunately, this storyline calls attention to one of the main problems with this picture book: The act of writing—not to mention “rewriting and correcting”—a story isn’t all that exciting to watch. Other scenes are slightly irritating. Due to his writer’s block, Alfonso spends most of the first half of the book begging his friend Colin to be his co-author. This is odd, because Colin is a bear. It also highlights the other big problem with the story: The central metaphor doesn’t work. Anyone who feels underrepresented in books—women and minorities, for example—may be frustrated to hear Colin say that “alpacas are noisy, clumsy, careless, and REALLY annoying.” They may be even more frustrated when Alfonso, rather than accepting his own self-worth, tries to impress his closed-minded friend with spectacular tricks. But that does lead to the funniest section of the story, as Alfonso hums nursery rhymes backward and performs “four-legged splits in MIDAIR!” Perry’s cartoons of a skateboarding alpaca are hysterical, and the book works just fine at surface level, as a story about an insecure writer looking for support wherever he can get it. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.5-by-18.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 38.4% of actual size.)
Alpacas may be hilarious, but they make lousy allegories. (alpaca facts) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-63570-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: David Fickling/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
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
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