Review by New York Times Review
Jay and Ray are fed up with being identical twins, "tired of always seeing that question mark in the eyes of the kids at school." So when Ray stays home sick on the first day of sixth grade and only "Jay Grayson" gets called for attendance, the boys dream up a prank: every other day they trade places in class, as well as in homework assignments, crushes and sports tryouts; the other one hides out at home. The plan works brilliantly for a while, and Clements is good at making us believe the brothers would be desperate enough to try it. THE LONESOME PUPPY Written and illustrated by Yoshitomo Nara. Chronicle. $17.99. (Ages 3 and up) Stranger and far more eloquent than Clifford the big red dog, the puppy of this book's title is so huge he straddles the earth: "I was too big for anyone to notice me, and that is why I was always all alone and lonesome." Until one day a tiny, brave girl does notice - "The girl was very surprised. I was surprised, too" - and each makes a friend. The oddly flat, expressionless appearance of the girl is almost off-putting, but the big puppy is a creature to warm up to. THE PENDERWICKS ON GARDAM STREET By Jeanne Birdsall. Knopf. $15.99. (Ages 8 to 12) Birdsall's second novel, a sequel to her National Book Award-winning "Penderwicks," offers comforting comedy in an Austen- and Alcott-like vein. Four years after his wife has died, Mr. Penderwick opens a letter she had written (and entrusted to his sister), urging him to begin dating again. So his daughters spring into action, orchestrating the worst dates they can think of, convinced that he's not ready yet - and neither are they. Subplots converge in a predictable fashion, but the various romantic misadventures (not just Dad's) are appealing. OOPS! By Alan Katz. Illustrated by Edward Korea. Margaret K. McElderry/Simon & Schuster. $17.99. (Ages 4 to 8) Like a goofier Shel Silverstein, Katz finds inspiration for poems in unusual subjecter including penmanship ("my b's all look like d's"), eggs ("they don't have eyes, they don't have legs") bowling alleys and, of course, bathrooms. Keren's drawings give "Oops!" much of its scruffy charm, and a chatty coda shares Katz's own grade-school verse and some early working titles - as well as an idea for a possible sequel, "Uh-Oh." AS GOOD AS ANYBODY Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel's Amazing March Toward Freedom. By Richard Michelson. Illustrated by Raul Colon. Knopf. $16.99. (Ages 6 to 10) A portrait of one of the more unusual partnerships of the civil rights movement. The book begins with a young Martin, angry at the "whites only" signs all around him. The scene shifts to Warsaw, where Abraham's father tells him, "Walk like a prince, not a peasant." King and Heschel, a minister and a rabbi, grow up to join together in the 1965 march in Selma, Ala., and this book shows how it happened. A BALLOON FOR A BLUNDERBUSS By Alastair Reid. Illustrated by Bob Gill. Phaidon. $14.95. (Ages 4 to 8) A reissue of a 1961 book, "Balloon" is evocative of a more whimsical time in picture books. The handsome retro illustrations in pen and ink - no computers here - complement Reid's text, which suggests a series of outlandish swaps: a butterfly in the hand earns a wishbone, which in turn can be exchanged for a kite with a tail, then a straw hat, until eventually a tower is traded up for a small army (looking like proper tin soldiers) and even "11 towering icebergs." A comical and poetic flight of fancy, and it all makes a kind of sense. JULIE JUST
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
Puns and parodies are part of the raucous wordplay in these nonsense rhymes, with sly, black-and-white drawings by New Yorker cartoonist Koren extending the fun. In The Rear Wiper, Dad talks about getting a new wiper for the back window of the car, but the kid gets a different picture from his father's words. With gross puns about gas, Macbath ( To pee or not to pee ), and 'snot where you start, the look and sound of words are lots of fun ( Why doesn't cough / rhyme with rough . . . ridiculous stough ). At the same time, the wicked cartoons play with sly images of daily life, such as the sister who watches real-life soap opera--in front of the washing machine. Grade-schoolers will love sharing the slapstick.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Like Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein, Katz (Take Me Out of the Bathtub) revels in the kind of schoolyard humor and wordplay relished by his target audience. These 100 light verses contain references to stale gum, troublesome siblings, outwitted parents, dirty underwear, farting in church, belly buttons and enough smelly things to make a fourth-grade boy laugh out loud in the library. Although the meter frequently stumbles, the topics are quirky ("I'm writing a love song to eggs./ They don't have eyes,/ they don't have legs./ They cannot sing,/ they cannot dance. / You cannot keep them / in your pants./ But they're my friends..."). They're often contemporary, too, as in a poem that begins, "I put my brother on eBay,/ but nobody made a bid." Koren (Very Hairy Harry), well known as a New Yorker cartoonist, amplifies the humor with droll b&w drawings in his distinctive, antically cross-hatched style. Perhaps the best section of all is in prose, consisting of 30 free-form "special bonus pages!!" called "Oops! There's More." Here Katz offers some of the funniest jokes in the book along with a melange of digressions about his grade school career, advice for young writers and a tongue-in-cheek promotion for Uh-Oh, this book's sequel. Ages 7-10. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-Katz, who established his place as a writer of humorous children's poetry with Take Me Out of the Bathtub (S & S, 2001), has another winner here. This collection of more than 100 short, funny, rhyming poems never lags. It includes occasional (rather funny) potty humor, such as when the young Shakespeare faces the toilet and pronounces, "To pee or not to pee." Puns and other groaners abound and are sure to delight young readers, especially boys. In the last chapter, Katz offers an offbeat account of how he became a children's poet and includes photocopies of some of his grade-school papers. The tone of this section is conversational, and every bit as entertaining as the poems. Koren's pen-and-ink cartoons resemble the art in Shel Silverstein's collections. The illustrations match the tone of the book and sometimes add extra interpretations of the poems. This is a great choice for reluctant poetry readers and aspiring class clowns.-Donna Cardon, Provo City Library, UT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
These one hundred poems run the gamut from silly to moderately gross. Each is short and punchy, with some clever wordplay and many modern-day references along with plenty of jokes centered on the human body (e.g., young Shakespeare muses, "To pee or not to pee"). Koren's crosshatched pen illustrations add sly humor. Katz's funny thoughts on writing are appended. Ind. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
