The Pete the Cat cash machine grinds out another nursery-rhyme–based picture book (Old MacDonald Had a Farm, 2014).
Here, the heavy-lidded cat contemplates (kind of) a twinkling star. The book’s chief value is in reproducing all five stanzas of the traditional rhyme, presumably to give artist Dean enough material to fill another 32 pages. The aesthetics that have informed the franchise throughout are scrupulously maintained, resulting in the odd, if predictable, disconnect between the celebratory text and the couldn’t-care-less protagonist. The verse “How I wonder what you are!” is paired with an image of Pete letting his stoner stare rest on readers, ignoring the telescope that is trained on the twinkling star: He couldn’t look further from wonderment. In a delightful departure from his approach in Old MacDonald, Dean seems to be trying to impose a narrative in which Pete ends his day of play to go home, eat supper with his equally bored-looking family, bathe and go to bed. Unfortunately, inconsistency in the color of the sky—it’s often painted noonday blue and at the beginning discordantly shifts from dusky blue to sunset yellow—unmoors readers, and the illustrations often have nothing to do with the text. Pete is at his most appealing when asleep and dreaming of flying a spaceship to the star, one of the only moments in the book when text, tone and visuals truly align.
For fans only . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-230416-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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Hee haw.
32
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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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It’s a wonderful day in the jungle, so why’s Jim Panzee so grumpy?
When Jim woke up, nothing was right: "The sun was too bright, the sky was too blue, and bananas were too sweet." Norman the gorilla asks Jim why he’s so grumpy, and Jim insists he’s not. They meet Marabou, to whom Norman confides that Jim’s grumpy. When Jim denies it again, Marabou points out that Jim’s shoulders are hunched; Jim stands up. When they meet Lemur, Lemur points out Jim’s bunchy eyebrows; Jim unbunches them. When he trips over Snake, Snake points out Jim’s frown…so Jim puts on a grimacelike smile. Everyone has suggestions to brighten his mood: dancing, singing, swinging, swimming…but Jim doesn’t feel like any of that. He gets so fed up, he yells at his animal friends and stomps off…then he feels sad about yelling. He and Norman (who regrets dancing with that porcupine) finally just have a sit and decide it’s a wonderful day to be grumpy—which, of course, makes them both feel a little better. Suzanne Lang’s encouragement to sit with your emotions (thus allowing them to pass) is nearly Buddhist in its take, and it will be great bibliotherapy for the crabby, cranky, and cross. Oscar-nominated animator Max Lang’s cartoony illustrations lighten the mood without making light of Jim’s mood; Jim has comically long arms, and his facial expressions are quite funny.
Though Jim may have been grumpy because a chimp’s an ape and not a monkey, readers will enjoy and maybe learn from his journey. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-553-53786-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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