Review of Fortunately, the Milk, by Neil Gaiman

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Delightfully Silly, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Fortunately, the Milk

by Neil Gaiman
illustrated by Skottie Young

Harper, 2013. 113 pages.
Starred Review

This beginning chapter book made me smile on every page. The book is essentially a tall tale told by a father about what happened when he went to the store for milk for his children’s cereal. Fortunately, the milk saved the world.

Along the way, he gets beamed into a flying saucer, meets the Queen of the Pirates, walks a plank, and travels with a time-traveling stegosaurus who invented the Button.

It’s all very silly, yet logical; very outrageous, yet matter-of-fact. And the father nobly goes through all the adventures to get milk for his children.

“Well,” I told him, “it was very lucky for me that you turned up when you did and rescued me. I am slightly lost in space and time right now and need to get home in order to make sure my children get milk for their breakfast.”

This is easy to read, but is enjoyable for any age audience. No dumbing down here! Kids ready for chapter books will be richly rewarded when they tackle this book, which includes time travel paradoxes and great silliness.

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skottieyoung.com

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Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy loaned to me by my friend Kristin. (Thank you!)

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers.

Review of Lulu Walks the Dogs, by Judith Viorst

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Delightfully Silly 0

Lulu Walks the Dogs

by Judith Viorst
illustrated by Lane Smith

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2012. 145 pages.

Another book about the irrepressible Lulu! She’s back, and although she no longer throws temper tantrums, “she’s still a girl who wants what she wants when she wants it.” In this book, she wants something that requires a lot of money, so she decides to start a dog-walking business. How hard could it be?

Actually, Lulu takes a whole chapter to decide her job. Here’s how it goes:

Well, maybe you already know and maybe you don’t. Because maybe Lulu first decided her jobs — or job — should be baking cookies, or spying, or reading to old people, and then those jobs did not turn out too well. And maybe instead of writing a chapter about how those jobs did not turn out too well, I’m moving right along to Chapter Four.

This book begs to be read aloud, especially with all the authorial asides, but it’s too long for storytime. It would make a fabulous bedtime book. The chapters are short, and it’s also a perfect beginning chapter book, with wonderful illustrations to entertain you as you go.

Lulu’s nemesis is Fleischman, the goody-goody boy down the block. So when walking the dogs doesn’t turn out to be as easy as Lulu thought, she above all doesn’t want to accept help from Fleischman, but that is her only recourse.

This book is about friendship and annoyingly perfect people and accepting help and lots of silliness about dogs who are sensitive about their names or only speak German, and it is a whole lot of fun.

lanesmithbooks.com
KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Olivia and the Fairy Princess

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Olivia and the Fairy Princesses

by Ian Falconer

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York, 2012. 36 pages.
Starred Review

Dare I say it? I hadn’t yet been won over into an Olivia fan. But when I read Olivia and the Fairy Princesses, something hit me, and I like this pig. This is no Eloise knock-off celebrating being naughty. This is a little girl pig with style and originality.

Olivia is depressed. She explains to her parents:

“That’s the problem,” said Olivia. “All the girls want to be princesses.”

“At Pippa’s birthday party, they were all dressed in big, pink ruffly skirts with sparkles and little crowns and sparkly wands. Including some of the boys.

“I chose a simple French sailor shirt, matador pants, black flats, a strand of pearls, sunglasses, a red bag, and my gardening hat.”

She has some perfectly legitimate questions:

“Why is it always a pink princess? Why not an Indian princess or a princess from Thailand or an African princess or a princess from China?

“There are alternatives.”

I love Olivia’s solution on Halloween. Everyone else dressed as a princess. She dressed as a warthog. “It was very effective.”

Olivia’s eventual decision of what she’d like to be is the perfect capstone.

Part of what makes this book so much fun are some throwaway lines and images. For example, there’s an extra pig in the mirror who’s not in the classroom. I like the busy family page, with the dog bringing a ball to Olivia. Then there’s Olivia struggling with her outfit, mirroring the modern art hanging in her room. But my favorite is, superimposed on an image of Versailles, Olivia saying, “Or I could be a reporter and expose corporate malfeasance.”

This book simply made me laugh. While at the same time making a valid point. And Olivia’s most interesting logic is the perfect touchstone for some interesting conversations with little girls, and some boys, all across the world.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Exclamation Mark, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenfeld

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Exclamation Mark

!

by Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld

Scholastic Press, New York, 2013. 52 pages.
Starred Review

It’s impossible for me not to love this book. It’s not even for my main audience — the preschool story time crowd. It is for kids in early elementary school who are learning about punctuation. And it’s simply perfect. Those kids are not the only ones who will love this book.

The expression of this story is completely visual. It plays out on the background of school writing paper. We’ve got a row of periods with little faces — and one exclamation mark.

He stood out from the very beginning.

It’s easy for the reader to see that the exclamation mark doesn’t fit in. He is different. He tries to be like his friends. But he becomes confused, flummoxed, and deflated, with appropriate illustrations of his top part in a twist.

Then one day, he meets a question mark.

The question mark asks one question after another. (Hilarious questions, I might add.)

When the exclamation mark shouts for him to stop, it is indeed an exclamation.

He didn’t know he had it in him.

He then explores his newly discovered power. I love the way the question mark eggs him on, always with questions (“How’d you do that? Can you do it again?”)

His exclamations get more and more excited, colorful, and all over the page. “It was like he broke free from a life sentence.”

Question mark: “Isn’t he something?”
Periods: “There was never any question in our minds.”

Okay, as I write this, it occurs to me that maybe I love this book so much because I love puns. In a sense, this whole book is a pun, done perfectly. And it’s a happy story about being an individual and making your mark. And it teaches about punctuation in a way no kid will ever forget. Hmm. Is that why they call it pun-ctuation? (Sorry.)

Way too much fun!

whoisamy.com
tomlichtenheld.com
scholastic.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Chloe and the Lion, by Mac Barnett and Adam Rex

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Chloe and the Lion
by Mac Barnett
Pictures by Adam Rex

Disney Hyperion Books, New York, 2012. 48 pages.
Starred Review

Meta-fiction does not always work, but Chloe and the Lion is joining the ranks of great meta-fiction picture books, along with David Wiesner’s The Three Pigs, Mo Willems’ We Are in a Book!, and even The Monster at the End of This Book, by Jon Stone.

The art is ever-so-interesting, mostly a three-dimensional scene made from paper cut-outs, but it includes plasticine figures of the author and illustrator. They introduce themselves and tell us about Chloe, who saves nickels and dimes to ride on the merry-go-round on the weekend.

The story is on the bizarre side…

But one week, Chloe found a lot of change.
So she was able to buy a lot of tickets.
And she rode around and around and around.
Which was why she got very dizzy.
And that’s how Chloe ended up lost in the forest.

We read that a huge lion leapt out at Chloe from behind an oak tree, but in the picture we see a dragon, with smoke coming from its nostrils.

The author and illustrator have it out. Adam, the illustrator, thinks that a dragon is much cooler than a lion. In the end, Mac has no choice but to fire Adam and find someone else to illustrate the book. Once the illustrator has been changed, “The first thing the lion did was walk up to Adam and swallow him whole.”

Unfortunately, the new artist, Hank Blowfeather, just isn’t as good as Adam. And when Mac tries to draw instead? Disaster!

So, Chloe and Mac need to figure out a way to get Adam out of the belly of the lion and save the book. And a thank-you at the end would be nice, too.

This is another book where description simply doesn’t do it justice. There are visual jokes throughout, a wide variety of styles, and a lot of thought about how a story works. This is a book worth reading again and again.

Oh, and I’ll have to add it to my Pinterest board: Picture Books Where Someone Gets Eaten! (Even if it’s not permanent, getting swallowed whole counts. Maybe I should put it on the Eating Thwarted page, too.)

Meta-fiction at its finest!

macbarnett.com
adamrex.com
disneyhyperionbooks.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Pip’s Trip, by Janet Morgan Stoeke

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Pip’s Trip

by Janet Morgan Stoeke

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2012. 32 pages.
Starred Review

Janet Morgan Stoeke is coming to our library! (That’s the City of Fairfax Regional Library on Monday, May 13, 2013 at 3:30!) I’m excited because I remember discovering her books when I first worked in a library back at Sembach Air Force Base. Her Minerva Louise books are perfect for preschoolers who enjoy someone sillier than they are.

Her recent book, Pip’s Trip, features more silly chickens, the three hens from The Loopy Coop Hens, Midge, Dot, and Pip.

Pip’s Trip is written as an easy reader, with simple vocabulary and short sentences. There are even seven very short chapters to give a child a sense of accomplishment. The format is still the large one of a picture book, which is all the better for storytime.

Midge, Dot, and Pip see the farm truck, and Pip notices there’s plenty of room in the back for them. Pip talks them into going for a ride, but after she gets in, Dot and Midge decide they should ask Rooster Sam first. So Pip is alone in the back of the truck.

We can see from the pictures that the driver has the hood of the truck up and is working on the engine. Pip, in the back of the truck, is very alarmed:

”Oh, no! It is getting loud.
This is bad.
I don’t want to see the wide world!
Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!”
Pip shuts her eyes.

When Pip peeks out, “the wide world looks just like Loopy Coop Farm!”

Pip’s friends set her straight when Pip talks about the ride she went on. But they all agree that she was very brave.

This is another fun story where preschoolers can enjoy someone who is far less wise in the ways of the world than they are. And with repetition, simple structure, and lots of one-syllable words, they’ll be reading it themselves before you know it.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

The Boy Who Cried Ninja, by Alex Latimer

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Readalouds, Starred Review 0

The Boy Who Cried Ninja

by Alex Latimer

Peachtree Publishers, 2011. 32 pages.
Starred Review

This book simply makes me laugh. You’ve all heard the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Well, what would happen if a boy saw all kinds of bizarre creatures doing bad things, but no one believed him?

That’s what happens to Tim.

When his mom asked him what happened to the last slice of cake, he told her the truth.

“It was a ninja,” cried Tim.

First the ninja crept into the house

. . . then he kicked it into the air
and ate it in one bite.

Next, an astronaut steals his dad’s hammer and a giant squid eats his whole book bag.

But Tim is not believed! (Oh the outrage!) In fact, he’s told to go rake up leaves in the yard and think about what he’s done. He decides to change his ways.

So when a pirate, a sunburned crocodile, and a time-traveling monkey come to Tim’s house and do bad things, Tim says it was him.

He still gets in trouble!

What’s a boy to do?

Tim comes up with an ingenious solution. This solution shows his parents the truth, teaches the strangers to behave, and gets them all the best party ever.

The pictures are just right for this tall tale of a story. This book is delightfully silly, wonderfully imaginative, and provides plenty to discuss. And it doesn’t hurt to have a totally fun reason to talk about telling the truth.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Maya Makes a Mess, by Rutu Modan

Delightfully Silly, Easy Readers, Graphic Novel, Picture Book Review 0

Maya Makes a Mess

by Rutu Modan

A Toon Book (Candlewick Press), 2012. 32 pages.

This book simply makes me laugh. It’s a Toon Book — a graphic novel for beginning readers. In fact, it’s specifically a Level Two Easy-to-Read Comic for Emerging Readers in grades 1-2. The series contains some excellent tips at the back for reading comics with kids.

But the story is why I enjoy it. Maya is a messy eater. And the reason that makes me laugh? Well, she eats spaghetti exactly like my son did — with bare hands. I completely understand the parents’ frustration in saying to Maya — “What if you were eating dinner with the Queen?”

So then the Queen invites Maya to dinner.

Maya is very polite. She remembers to say Please when she asks for pasta with ketchup. But when she doesn’t know which fork to use and is told to eat it the way she does at home — well, the entire dining room notices.

But this is a happy and silly story — so eventually all the dressed-up grown-ups decide to eat like Maya does. Hilarity ensues.

This book will get a kid’s focus off the laborious details of decoding words and have them enjoying the outrageously delightful story.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Three Ninja Pigs, by Corey Rosen Schwartz

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review 0

The Three Ninja Pigs

by Corey Rosen Schwartz
illustrated by Dan Santat

Putnam, 2012. 40 pages.

There’s a whole subgenre out there of Three Little Pigs variants, and I’ve definitely got a soft spot for them. This one doesn’t attain the heights of The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, or David Wiesner’s The Three Pigs, but it’s definitely fun.

I don’t think I even need to tell you what happens. We’ve got three ninja pigs. The one who trains the hardest (the girl! yay!) is the one who defeats the wolf. Along the way, Corey Rosen Schwartz gives us rhymes that make us laugh instead of cringe. (Well, if you don’t love puns, you may cringe, but the rhymes are excellent. And personally, I love the puns.) Dan Santat’s square-jawed pigs are the perfect tough porkers to take on the bullying wolf.

Here’s the sister pig training:

She balanced and blocked like an expert,
and practiced her lessons nonstop.
By the time she was through,
she could break boards in two
by performing a perfect pork chop!

Okay, there’s nothing profound here, and Sister Pig manages to scare away the wolf with her ninja moves. But it’s definitely a fun addition to the subgenre. And, hey, it’s got ninjas!

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Z is for Moose, by Kelly Bingham

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Z Is For Moose

by Kelly Bingham
pictures by Paul O. Zelinsky

Greenwillow Books, 2012. 32 pages.
Starred Review

Alphabet Books are necessary preparation for a child learning to read, but they definitely have the potential to be snoozers. Here’s the most innovative alphabet book since Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Just before the title page we get a glimpse of all the animals and objects lined up in order, ready to go, with Zebra in charge. But Moose is excited and exuberant, and not really paying attention to Zebra’s directions. He’s the one lifting the curtain that gives us our first glimpse of the performers. After the title page, with the characters still in line, he’s poking the Lollipop with the Needle.

Things start innocently and calmly, looking like a perfectly ordinary alphabet book. Then we see “D is for Moose,” with Moose standing proudly, and a frantic Duck behind, obviously kicked off the page. Zebra tells Moose, “Moose does not start with D. You are on the wrong page.”

Moose pops in on H is for Hat, getting right in front of the camera, asking “Is it my turn yet?” The H is blocked, but the savvy child will cleverly figure out exactly what it said.

Moose continues to lurk behind or in the pictures, getting more and more excited as M draws near. Then…

“M is for Mouse”

This definitely gets a reaction. Moose throws a fit; he tries to get in the remaining pictures, and Zebra has to block him. Finally, he’s in despair — until Zebra comes up with a lovely solution. On the back endpapers, Moose asks Zebra, “Can we do that again?”

“Yes, Moose. We can do that again.”

I have no doubt at all that most preschoolers will take that as permission to start the book over again immediately.

The book has many, many details that will reward further reading. Spotting the alphabetical objects in order even when Moose gets in the way will keep children busy through many readings.

Delightful fun.

kellybinghamonline.com
paulozelinsky.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.