“Pigs really, really, really, really, really like slop!”
In fact, “eating slop is part of pig culture,” so when Gerald the elephant turns up his trunk at best friend Piggie’s reeking, green bowlful (“The flies are how you know it is ripe!”), she takes it very personally. Seeing her devastation, Gerald steels himself to “try a small taste,” using his trunk to transfer a tiny globule to a very reluctant tongue. A comedic four-page sequence ensues, in which Gerald’s disgust is dramatized with very un-elephantlike coloration, contortions, and many repetitions of “Urk!” (Turns out old shoes are the secret ingredient.) Willems exploits his audience’s familiarity with the beloved characters to deliver a humorous update of Green Eggs and Ham, combining it with a message about not just friendship and trying new things, but cross-cultural understanding. With cultural awareness an ever more prominent element of school curricula, it’s likely kids will understand it immediately. Picky eaters will see themselves in Gerald, and they will appreciate his bravery and generosity of spirit. Once he’s tasted it, Gerald confesses that he does not particularly like slop, but he’s glad he tried it: “Because I really like you,” he tells a pleased Piggie.
“Yummy” may be highly subjective, but friendship is transcendent. (Early reader. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2262-6
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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Hee haw.
23
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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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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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