Sweet, low-key lessons in togetherness.
Stressful new adventures provide opportunities for three rescue pets to comfort and support each other.
A series of tersely told episodes that are spread out over the pages in easily digestible bits follow an adorable trio: a cat named Tiger and two dogs named Moose and Bear. The pets accompany their brown-skinned human, Cathy, to a new place (the vet’s), where they are painlessly “poked, squeezed, and checked,” then later fret when Cathy goes out without them—but finally enjoy a group cuddle when she comes back. In between, Tiger and Bear squabble over a favorite chair at naptime until Moose urges them to share, and a thunderstorm becomes less scary when Bear tells the other two that the “alien elephants” outside are afraid of moose and tigers. In Pate’s luminous, freely brushed illustrations, the feelings of the very young-looking animals are patent on their expressive faces at each moment, and the authors, too, help out less analytical readers by having their characters both sum up the accumulated lessons explicitly (“Moose taught us how to share!”) and respond to Cathy’s closing “How was everyone’s day?” with a silent but fervent “It was the best day ever. Just like every day.”
Sweet, low-key lessons in togetherness. (Early chapter book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781636551173
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Red Comet Press
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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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