Ignorance equals bliss in this amusing, cleverly executed tale.
A clueless fish owes her escape from a fisherman and a great blue heron to sheer dumb luck in this “fishy tale.”
A little round fish in a kerchief, Miss Doreen Randolph-Potts wends her way upstream to visit her cousin when she spies a dragonfly “darting, / dancing deliciously above her.” Thinking she’s found a “lovely snack,” Doreen unknowingly swallows the fisherman’s lure as he rapidly reels her in and tosses her into his bucket. Gleefully assuming she’s on an “outing,” Doreen’s equally oblivious when the heron snaps her up and flies off. Thanking the heron for escorting her on her journey, Doreen asks if he’s an egret, prompting him to open his beak to correct her. Suddenly “plunging and plummeting” through the air, unflappable Doreen’s thrilled to be “FLYING” and eventually falls back into the stream and swims on, unaware of her close calls. Laced with panicky warnings from the narrator alerting Doreen to her impending mortal danger, the alliterative text tracks her perilous journey in humorous detail while its typographic placement visually follows her up, down and across double-page spreads. Rendered in pencil, watercolor, gouache and colored pencil, the fluid illustrations effectively rely on light and arresting perspectives to highlight Doreen’s precarious situations.
Ignorance equals bliss in this amusing, cleverly executed tale. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-375-86918-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
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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