Pinky Got Out! by Michael Portis and Lori Richmond

"Welcome to the zoo. Showing you around is my favorite thing to do," said the zookeeper. "These birds always stick together. So today, be like a flamingo and stay with your flock."

"Uh-oh," said Penny. 

Pinky is a famous flamingo at the local zoo. When a group of children go on a field trip to the zoo, Penny is the first to notice that Pinky has escaped from the flamingo enclosure. She tries to get the zookeeper's attention but fails. As the class walks around the zoo — learning about meerkats, seals, monkeys, pythons, and other animals, along the way — the news of Pinky's escape slowly spreads.

Penny tells Mia and Mia tells Joey. Penny. and Max tell the zookeeper Pinky's in the giraffe exhibit and the zookeeper says, "Don't be silly." Pinky is good at hiding. By the time they've seen the pandas and ostriches, passed the ice cream cart, played in the children's area, and visited the gift shop, everyone knows that Pinky got out. They tell the zookeeper in chorus, making her jump, and in the next page spread the children are climbing onto the bus while the zookeeper stands behind a fence with Pinky. All is well.

Recommended - I particularly love the fact that Pinky hides in most of the illustrations (he's snorkeling in a tank in the spread with the seals) giving little ones the job of hunting him down in each page spread. In the final spread, it's night-time and the zookeeper is counting the flamingos, as she does at the beginning of the book. She counts to 9 and says, " . . . and . . . wait." Pinky is flying away again. I predict giggles and a lot of fun pointing out the mostly-hidden flamingo from children who are read Pinky Got Out! I always loved reading books with an interactive quality and ones that tickled their funny bones. My children would definitely have loved Pinky.

I received a copy of Pinky Got Out! from Penguin Random House for review. Many thanks! 

It's Friday, but this is a tour post so Fiona Friday will be posted on the wrong day (Caturday, of course), this week! 

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Bonaparte Falls Apart by Margery Cuyler and Will Terry

Bonaparte Falls Apart by Margery Cuyler and Will Terry is the story of a skeleton with a unique problem. His bones keep coming apart. He can't pedal a bike, catch a ball or bend over without worrying about losing a bone or two. What should he do?

His friends have all sorts of crazy ideas but none of them work. Franky Stein (that adorable guy on the cover) suggests gluing and screwing Bonaparte's bones together but when he's done Bonaparte can't move. All that work for nothing. Blacky Widow (a spider) tries spinning a web around Bonaparte, but he just ends up in a tangle. The same kind of disaster occurs when his mummy friend tries binding him. Regardless of what his friends come up with, all the work ends up having to be undone, until a solution walks right past them. And, since we're all grown-ups, here, I'm going to give away the ending. It's a dog. Bonaparte teaches a dog to fetch his bones when they fall off.

Here's what I got out of Bonaparte Falls Apart: This is not the Halloween book you might have expected; it's really about friendship and working together to find a solution. Sure, the solution ends up walking right past them, in the end, but Bonaparte's buddies went out of their way to try to help him out. Also, it's an opportunity to teach children a stunning number of bone jokes:

Franky Stein picked it up and set it back in place. "Before school starts, we will bone up on other ideas," he said.

"We will leave no bone unturned," said Blacky Widow. 

"No bones about it!" said Mummicula. 

Recommended - Not just for Halloween. The characters are perfect for the season but the theme of Bonaparte Falls Apart works year-round and nicely keeps the book from being simply a seasonal story that you only feel comfortable pulling out once a year. You'll appreciate that if you've ever bought a book for your kids or students and then realized it's so specific to a particular day that reading it any other time of the year is just . . . awkward. Love the illustrations (which appear to be colored pencil drawings - subtly colored but seriously adorable). Franky Stein is my favorite character - so oddly cute for a Frankenstein character.

Side note: My husband walked in while I was in the middle of writing this review and asked what I was writing about. I summarized the story and told him how it ended. "That's silly!" he said. Well, yeah. That's what kids will love about it, right? Silly is good.

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.