Disappointing.
A young beaver kit grows up in a world in which beavers have lived for generations.
Markle introduces her subject when he's only 3 weeks old, "softball-sized." She follows his growth using like familiar comparisons and documents his changing activities as he begins to imitate his parents, to feed himself, and to contribute to the continued building of the dam and providing for the next generation. She smoothly weaves in details of beaver life: their dams and lodges, their food, their enemies, and their activities as the seasons change. This experienced and award-winning author’s engaging and informative text is not well-served by its packaging. The tantalizing subtitle is misleading, and the illustrations’ stylized wetlands and forests would be more appropriate background for an animated film than an informational picture book. The long beaver dam that is their home is identified only in a short author’s note in the backmatter; Markle doesn't use the superlative “longest.” The green of Canada's north woods is deep and dark, but these illustrations tend toward the cyan. The text is usually set in white on the dark images, appropriate for the nocturnal animal. Shelves that already include Glen Rounds’ classic Beaver (1999) and Jim Arnosky’s Beaver Pond, Moose Pond (2000) probably don’t need this, but it would complement other books about animal life cycles and includes helpful further research suggestions.
Disappointing. (Informational picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4677-4900-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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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