Epic storytelling erupts on the page without the use of a single word. Superb.
Caldecott Honoree Becker’s dystopian imaginings once more find fruit in picture-book format.
The biblical Noah as a gargantuan robot? Stranger things have been conceived of. In flooded lands replete with incredibly detailed architecture (think David Macaulay meets WALL-E’s world) but with no humans in sight, a towering yellow robot, the word NOA on its arm, powered by wind turbines from its back, sets forth to collect all the animals of the world. The waters rise to NOA’s knees, but still our robotic avatar collects with infinite kindness every giraffe, panda, tiger, and elephant it can find. The crumbling world around them hints at the zoos and circuses where once these creatures made their homes. Now, they sail away with NOA on a boat built by the automaton. This wordless tale outlines their struggles, from storm to shipwreck and, ultimately, to hope. The allusions to both Noah’s Ark and Eden are sly but ever present, set as they are against Becker’s sumptuous watercolor and pen-and-ink backdrops. Here, the very existence of life on Earth hangs in the balance, and the stakes have never been higher. Minute details pepper each scene, giving sharp-eyed readers the chance to find something new every time they page through this book (like the fact that the meat-eating tigers are kept in their own separate cage on the robot’s boat). True fans will find themselves poring over these pictures for hours.
Epic storytelling erupts on the page without the use of a single word. Superb. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781536227680
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 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
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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
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BOOK REVIEW
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