The fairy tales asides, there’s plenty of cozy warmth in Fern and Otto’s friendship itself.
A cat and a bear working on a picture book find familiar stories in the forest.
Fern, a bear, and Otto, a cat, have a busy and full life together in a cozy seaside treehouse they share as best friends. When Fern tries to write and illustrate a book about their friendship, Otto suggests they go out into the forest for more exciting material, such as unicorns, dragons, or wish-granting genies. Instead, the pair come across stories in progress that’ll be familiar to most young readers, such as “The Tortoise and the Hare,” “The Three Bears,” and, most frightening, the witch from “Hansel and Gretel.” It’s all a “little too exciting for me,” Otto finally admits, “I really would love a story about two friends who live in a cozy house on a hill, far away from wolves and witches.” Graegin’s follow-up to her first authored picture book, Little Fox in the Forest (2017), trades that wordless experience for a more convoluted story that seems a little beside the point, as Fern and Otto neither affect the fairy tales nor are much affected by them until the final fright. But the soft illustrations of the forest adventure, with dozens of beautifully rendered critters and kids (many of color) and a rapturous depiction of the duo’s treehouse in the moonlight, make up for any narrative missteps. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-22.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
The fairy tales asides, there’s plenty of cozy warmth in Fern and Otto’s friendship itself. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-12130-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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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