An amusing and attractive early chapter book that will be popular with girls anxious to project reading competency to...
Flamboyant, self-confident Missy is back for a second outing for transitioning readers.
Missy has decided that it’s her turn to take some class pets home, and the perfect pets for her are the class rats. (This classroom is well-equipped with pets.) The only problem is that she has to convince her mother—using age-appropriate persistence, of course. Unfortunately, the new girl in class, equally self-confident and stubborn Tiffany, also plans to bring home Eenie-Meenie, Miney and Moe. The girls’ nose-to-nose confrontations and behind-the-scenes scheming are capably depicted in full-color, cartoonlike illustrations that match well with the text and effectively capture the humor of Missy’s hyperbole. Missy’s adventures seem destined to strike a chord mostly with girls, although her exuberant school experiences could amuse a wider audience. How does Missy work out her issues with Tiffany? It turns out her rival for rodent affection didn’t know that the little critters were rats. “AAUGHH!” she screams. No lessons on learning to compromise here.
An amusing and attractive early chapter book that will be popular with girls anxious to project reading competency to competing classmates. (Fiction. 5-7)Pub Date: June 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-49610-0
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Branches/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
