The latest Pinkerton from Kellogg is a bit too all over the place to sustain an actual story line, and Pinkerton is too distracted to play even a fantasy role of a father. Emily learns in school that father Emperor penguins cradle their chick’s egg on their feet through nine long weeks to keep them warm. Pinkerton, a Great Dane dreaming of his own flock of penguins, decides he is going to cradle a white football he has found. This he does until a dog biscuit distracts him, allowing the owner of the football to reclaim his equipment. As Pinkerton is being led home through the park, he spies another football and kidnaps it, busting through a dog show for good measure. He is located at the neighborhood ice rink, where he is sitting patiently for the football to hatch. A quick substitution by Granny (whose been sewing stuffed animals throughout the story) insures the return of the football and a successful hatching for Pinkerton. As an agent of mayhem, Pinkerton has no equal, and preposterous stories can be good fun, but this one just never gets on track: Pinkerton is too self-involved for the idea of fatherhood to seem appealing to him. Still, this gives Kellogg a chance to showcase his wonderfully busy, magnetic artwork. It keeps everything humming along on the visual plane so much so that there’s no need for a real story to back it up. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8037-2536-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2001
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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