Sofia is awakened one morning by “scrumptious smells.” She and her cat Figaro go downstairs to her family’s restaurant to discover that her family is already cooking for the arrival of her grandparents. She tries to help, but she splatters Papa’s tomato sauce, puts too much yeast in Mama’s breadstick dough and tosses her brother Mario’s pizza dough onto the ceiling fan. Each time she is scolded—“Bambina, sei troppo piccola!”—she retreats to her seat in the fig tree. Finally, she helps herself to some gelato for breakfast and takes it outside under the tree, where a ripe fig falls into it—and lo! she has made a special dessert for her grandparents and the restaurant. The time sequencing is odd: It seems peculiar that Sofia would be asleep when everyone else is downstairs working, and it would take her quite some time to make those mistakes, making breakfast rather late. The images veer toward stereotype: Papa is bald and and has a black, handlebar mustache; Mario has thick, curly, black hair; Nonna wears her white hair in a bun. (author’s note, recipe, Italian words and phrases) (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-56145-522-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
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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