Skip it.
A young alpaca learns how important her fleece is to humans.
“High up in the Andes, on a mountain in Peru, / Pati the alpaca gussied up for her debut.” Pati is off to meet her classmates by a lake. And right away the problems with this book present themselves. The story is a two-pronged one. On the one side is a story with a puritanical lesson that finds fault with Pati’s wanting to look her best, and Pati soon learns that she will be a better being if she willingly gives up her fleece to help humans keep warm. The second intent of the story seems to be to introduce children to Spanish words. Unfortunately, the meanings of the Spanish words sprinkled through the text are not obvious, forcing readers to flip back and forth between the story and the glossary at the end. For example: “One day, cría Carmen whispered, “Pati, ¡no te creas! / In the spring we lose our fur and then we’ll all be feas!” The illustrations are also problematic. With an emphasis on the cute and colorful, the images represent an Andean scenery of lush, fresh greens. Nothing could be more removed from the harsh environment that exists at these high altitudes.
Skip it. (glossary, author’s note, additional facts) (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7624-9414-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Running Press
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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
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