Icy Antarctica is frustratingly monochromatic for Edna the penguin, so she forsakes playing (and occasionally even lunch) to scan the horizon for something else. What does she see as she gazes out at the relentless ice and snow? “White, thinks Edna. Like yesterday.” At night it’s, “Black. Like tomorrow” and the ocean is just, “Blue, blue, blue. Forever.” Life’s tricolor monotony lifts when she accidentally crashes into a safety-orange “something else”—a large tent set up in a scientists’ camp. “WOW!” she cries, and, endearingly, proceeds to hug what she can of it. Snow falls on spare, artfully composed landscapes in rough dabs of paint, and the adorable penguins in thickly textured lines resemble earplugs with feet. Young readers may gleefully gloat when they spot things Edna doesn’t see at first—a bright orange plane flies by when her back is turned, and a green ship slips undetected into a double-page spread. The deliberately clashing endpapers, solid orange and green, extend the theme in this sweet story of yearning. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-06-145688-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS
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Hee haw.
36
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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. 29, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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