A fanciful tale with practical guidance for protecting our planet.
A picture-book parable on environmental stewardship.
“Usually I don’t talk to strangers on the street,” says Lalo, a sailor. But our hero makes an exception upon encountering a talking goldfish in a fishbowl atop a pile of trash. Befitting her bright red color, her name is Rosa, and she longs for “a better life.” To fulfill this wish, Lalo takes Rosa on a global journey, but everywhere they go—a pond, a mountaintop, the Arctic, the jungle, the desert, the River Seine, the beach—they find empty, plastic water bottles, symbolic of broader environmental degradation. “We wondered where all of them came from,” says Lalo on a climactic spread showing the pair in a rowboat on a body of water choked by bottles. The following wordless spread depicts them watching aghast as people lug water bottles from a store; then they join not people but several anthropomorphic animals in cleaning up the ubiquitous litter. In their efforts, they encounter a garden gnome who finally gives Rosa a new home on his fantastically pristine property, and Lalo closes the story with a refreshing glass of tap water. (Fine-print warnings tell readers not to free goldfish in waterways and to ensure tap water’s potability.) Yayo blends attractive visuals, a sense of whimsy, and sound lessons on environmentalism. Human characters have skin the white of the page.
A fanciful tale with practical guidance for protecting our planet. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781990598234
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Tradewind Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 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.
