In poetic prose, a polar bear reveals her dependency on the cycle of Arctic seasons.
The artwork is strikingly beautiful, with a palette that gives equal glory to such natural wonders as starry night skies, ocean depths, and the aurora borealis. The author/illustrator’s background in scientific illustration serves the book well; the bear staring directly at readers early on has glistening eyes and a nose that surely will smudge the opposite page. Renderings of Arctic habitats and their denizens are equally impressive. The text also excels. Complementing its enchanting rhythm, the text includes some enjoyable alliteration (“a weary raft of wary walruses”). The bear begins her story by telling readers that polar bears are patient animals and that she has learned patience from her mother. This sliver of anthropomorphism cleverly engages readers with this particular bear while giving a basic, scientific account of one year in a female polar bear’s life. The facts are fascinating. Polar bears apparently spend their lives alternately: gorging on seals and ambling on sea ice, then paddling toward terra firma during the annual ice melt, and then nearly starving while on land. The females move further inland to birth their cubs, and the cycle resumes as the ice rebuilds. “I will teach the sea’s rhythm to my cubs and whisper to them in the dark.”
A subtle cry for environmental activism in an enticing package. (endnotes) (Picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-279128-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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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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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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