A well-crafted, thoughtful, and well-illustrated addition to a noteworthy educational book series.
A well-traveled manatee guides young readers through an undersea journey in this lively, informational picture book.
Always up for exciting aquatic adventures, wise Kobee Manatee and his friends, Pablo the hermit crab and Tess the seahorse, leave the Cayman Islands for a roughly 500-mile swim to the Belize Barrier Reef. Their destination: the Seagrass Café, run by Kobee’s cousin, who needs help cleaning up plastic litter before she can host her guests. Off the coast of Belize, too, is the must-see Great Blue Hole, which Kobee tells his friends is “one of the most amazing places on Earth”; one of many “Kobee’s Fun Facts”—short, clearly written text boxes sprinkled liberally throughout the book—informs readers that “The Great Blue Hole is so deep that sunlight cannot reach its depths, and plants and plankton can’t survive.” Some other facts aren’t exactly “fun,” in that they observe the alarming issue of damage to ocean life due to climate change and massive dumping of plastics and other toxic waste. However, they do reflect careful research and also offer information for kids and families, such as a list of ocean-conservation organizations. These encapsulated asides give weight to the charm of Thayer’s storytelling and the colorful, cartoon-style characters courtesy of illustrator Gallegos; Kobee sports a purple cap and yellow vest, Tess has glamorous pink hair, and the depiction of life in the ocean effectively draws on both fact and fantasy. Fueled by themes of friendship, cooperation, and compassion, the trio’s eventful journey also doesn’t lack for excitement, either: Pablo uses his claws to free a sea turtle from bindings of plastic, the friends are nearly stung by a Portuguese man-of-war, and Kobee rescues Tess from a scorpionfish.
A well-crafted, thoughtful, and well-illustrated addition to a noteworthy educational book series.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-99-712399-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thompson Mill Press
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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