A simple, sonorous introduction.
How seahorses quietly elude the many marine predators on the prowl.
Young readers may be excused for thinking that the hapless seahorse doesn’t stand a chance, with every turn of the page revealing yet another menace—from eels, parrotfish, and crabs to squid, turtles, jellyfish, and bluefin tuna—gliding by in search of a snack. As it turns out, though, the distinctively shaped little fish are good at hiding, and along the sandy bottoms and brightly hued reefs of Mikecz’s seascapes, they can be spotted lurking unobtrusively…changing colors to match their backgrounds, floating behind tufts of sea grass, and swimming amid schools of smaller fish while intertwining tails to mate and give birth to clouds of small fry. The titular refrain coils sinuously throughout the alliterative narrative (“An octopus undulates silently, / gliding and grasping with eight arms. / And the sea hides a seahorse…”). Behrman concludes with pages of facts about seahorses, as well as information on how to help them and where to go to see and to learn more about them. Because many wild species are endangered or in decline due to habitat destruction, she discourages keeping them as pets but does include leads to sources for farmed specimens.
A simple, sonorous introduction. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781685556440
Page Count: 32
Publisher: The Collective Book Studio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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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