Kids will enjoy the silliness, and there’s lots of potential for the classroom.
Themed alphabet books are like the Little Engine that Could—they just keep on comin’.
This one is based on the author/illustrator’s personal experience in Kenya. A young man named Kay Kay promises the children at a new school in his village that he will paint the plain white walls with animals from A to Z. As he walks along looking for inspiration, he meets groups of animals too busy at playing “jackstones” or reading riddles to help. They are obvious (to readers) choices, though Kay Kay doesn’t realize it. As he continues his jaunt, each threesome of animals joins in the trek behind him, ending in a complete animal alphabet. The animals he encounters are highlighted in green: “ ‘Kay Kay, come dance with us!’ shouted Baboon, Crocodile, and Dragonfly.” Most of these animals are relatively familiar, with the possible exceptions of Nyala, Quagga, Upupa Bird, Vervet and Xerus Squirrel. The loosely energetic, cartoon illustrations are lively with capricious details. The backmatter includes a glossary of typical Swahili words such as “please” and “bathroom,” as well as such comic phrases as “My brother picks his nose” and “No more broccoli, thank you.” There is also an author’s note, photos of the real Kay Kay and the Star of Hope School, and a map, but unfortunately there is no key to the animal names.
Kids will enjoy the silliness, and there’s lots of potential for the classroom. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-58536-905-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There are many parallel legends – the seal women, for example, with their strange sad longings – but none is more direct than this American Indian story of a girl who is carried away in a horses’ stampede…to ride thenceforth by the side of a beautiful stallion who leads the wild horses. The girl had always loved horses, and seemed to understand them “in a special way”; a year after her disappearance her people find her riding beside the stallion, calf in tow, and take her home despite his strong resistance. But she is unhappy and returns to the stallion; after that, a beautiful mare is seen riding always beside him. Goble tells the story soberly, allowing it to settle, to find its own level. The illustrations are in the familiar striking Goble style, but softened out here and there with masses of flowers and foliage – suitable perhaps for the switch in subject matter from war to love, but we miss the spanking clean design of Custer’s Last Battle and The Fetterman Fight. 6-7
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1978
ISBN: 0689845049
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bradbury
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
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