Combine a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet with a National Book Award–winning artist and, honestly, it's hard to go wrong.
Among the elegant equines at Adams & Son, Harry the Horse stands out—not for his admitted homeliness and lack of show-ring liveliness, but for his ability to soothe and befriend each and every restless new horse in the barn. Enter a high-strung human child. Has Harry met his match? Kumin knows horses—she breeds them—and her affection for them comes through clearly. Her jaunty couplets beg to be read out loud, though a few—“But before he set Algie down again / Harry shook him to dust off the grain”—strain just a bit under the rhyme scheme. As he did in The Tale of Funny Cide (written by The Funny Cide Team, 2006) and Our Cats Nick and Nora (written by Isabelle Harper, 1995), Moser uses vibrant watercolors from multiple perspectives against dramatic white backgrounds to convey animal personality and movement in an uncluttered way. His Harry grins and rolls his eyes in ways that, like the text, are fanciful but grounded in reality. Harry the Horse emerges as a full personality, and if the same can’t be said for young Algernon, that's a small quibble.
Good fun for the preschool set and slightly beyond. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59643-439-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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Hee haw.
19
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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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Is it a stormy-night scare or a bedtime book? Both!
Little Blue Truck and his good friend Toad are heading home when a storm lets loose. Before long, their familiar, now very nervous barnyard friends (Goat, Hen, Goose, Cow, Duck, and Pig) squeeze into the garage. Blue explains that “clouds bump and tumble in the sky, / but here inside we’re warm and dry, / and all the thirsty plants below / will get a drink to help them grow!” The friends begin to relax. “Duck said, loud as he could quack it, / ‘THUNDER’S JUST A NOISY RACKET!’ ” In the quiet after the storm, the barnyard friends are sleepy, but the garage is not their home. “ ‘Beep!’ said Blue. ‘Just hop inside. / All aboard for the bedtime ride!’ ” Young readers will settle down for their own bedtimes as Blue and Toad drop each friend at home and bid them a good night before returning to the garage and their own beds. “Blue gave one small sleepy ‘Beep.’ / Then Little Blue Truck fell fast asleep.” Joseph’s rich nighttime-blue illustrations (done “in the style of [series co-creator] Jill McElmurry”) highlight the power of the storm and capture the still serenity that follows. Little Blue Truck has been chugging along since 2008, but there seems to be plenty of gas left in the tank.
A sweet reminder that it’s easy to weather a storm with the company and kindness of friends. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-85213-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION
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