7 posts tagged “children's book”

Pilkey, D.  The Adventures of Captain Underpants. 

The Blue Sky Press, 1997.  121 pages. 

$16.95  ISBN 0-590-84627-2

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? – The Shadow
I am terror.  I am the night. -- Batman
Up, up, and away! -- Superman
Tra-la-laaaaa! – Captain Underpants             

            In The Adventures of Captain Underpants, the first book in a series by Dav Pilkey, we meet a pair of pranksters.  Harold and George are best friends who like to have fun together, which usually take the form of playing tricks on their classmates.  When they are not putting pepper in the cheerleader’s pom-poms, the boys go to their tree house and write comics.  Harold and George sell these comics to the students at their school, much to the principal’s chagrin.  He attempts to stop their activities and the boys retaliate by using a hypnotic ring to control the principal.  But something goes wrong and the friend’s simple prank ends up transforming the principal into one of their comic book characters – Captain Underpants!

              Dav Pilkey is no slouch.  Having published over 20 children’s books, he is well-known for his silly characters and wacky imagination.  With titles like The Halo-Weiner, Dogzilla, and The Dumb Bunnies, even the earliest reader knows that these stories are meant to tickle their funny-bone.  Such is the case with The Adventures of Captain Underpants, a simple chapter book meant to entertain new readers.  Each page has large print text and lots of illustrations.  Chapters are usually 4-5 pages, except when they contain FLIP-O-RAMA sequences, a very basic form of animation that instructs the reader to flip between two pages so they can see the story’s climactic battle. It’s a fun addition to the book, adding a bit of interactivity, and the novelty may inspire some young artists to create FLIP-O-RAMAs of their own.  Other pages are filled with Harold and George’s comic strips, which contain numerous creative spelling errors.

              Some adults may be concerned with the behavior of Harold and George throughout the story.  They are not the most respectful of students and their activities do ruin the school’s big football game.  Yet the age-group that will read this book knows that this is pure escapism, letting them live out the fantasy of squaring off with the principal and fighting robots.  For an 8 year old boy, the inclusion of fake doggy doo-doo only makes the situation more hilarious.  They will spot the misspellings in Harold’s and George’s comic strip and feel proud that they are better writers than the two boys. The book is a great stepping stone from easy readers to beginner chapter books, especially for reluctant readers that might have been turned off of reading due to the mature subject matter of more acclaimed children’s literature. 

              It is easy for parents and educator to condemn the immature elements of this series and want to remove it from bookshelves in schools and libraries.  But it is important to remember that silly stories like Captain Underpants can show a child a whole other side of reading.  A book that can make them laugh out loud will encourage them to continue reading.  Perhaps after they finish the stories of Harold and George they will feel more confident in their reading abilities.  And maybe then they will move on to the stories of the classic and more acceptable pranksters, Tom and Huck.

Montes, Marisa. Los Gatos Black on Halloween. Illustrated by

Yuyi Morales. Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2006.  32 pages. 

$16.95 ISBN-13 978-0-8050-7429-1

Los gatos black with eyes of green,

cats slink and creep on Halloween.

With ojos keen that squint and gleam -

They yowl, they hiss…they even scream!

From the first page of Los Gatos Black on Halloween, the reader can tell that this is not your ordinary Halloween picture book.  Marisa Montes’ bilingual rhymes are each beautifully portrayed in Yuyi Morales’ two page illustrations.  The story introduces each creature commonly seen on Halloween night in both Spanish and English.  They each appear, moving towards their haunted destination, a monsters’ ball, and leading up to a surprise ending when they meet the scariest creatures of all!

              Yuyi Morales grew up in Mexico and it is obvious that her illustrations draw from childhood memories of the Mexican celebration of Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.  During this celebration, it is not uncommon to see skeletons and skulls on display, sometimes painted or filled with candy.  So, it is no surprise that the skeletons and other Halloween creatures in the story seem to be in a festive mood, wearing their sombreros and smiling.  Marisa Montes also has roots in the Hispanic world, having been born in Puerto Rico.  She carefully crafts each rhyme in the story, placing the Spanish nouns in such a way that a non-Spanish speaking child might be able to decipher its meaning even before moving on to the next sentence that provides the world in English.

              Of course, Yuyi Morales’ artwork also assists the reader in discovering each word’s meaning.  The night sky is the backdrop to almost every page, and Morales portrays each creature walking, flying, or stumbling to their destination.  The cool palette of colors she has chosen (light blues, browns, and dark reds) create an eerie element but do not let the mood become so intense it would overwhelm a young child.  Montes’ words fly through the sky too, never appearing as normal straight lines of text, but as wispy, wiggly words that follow each gato, bruja, and fantasma across the pages. 

              For a young child that is unfamiliar with the holiday of Dia de los Muertos the images in this book may be a bit disturbing.  But if they have already watched movies like Tim Burton’s animated classic The Nightmare Before Christmas, these illustrations may actually draw them in and open them up to a new language and culture.  For a family with a young child that celebrates the holiday of Halloween or Dia de los Muertos, this book would be a great way to get into the spirit (pun intended).  Los Gatos Black on Halloween would be a welcome addition for elementary school teachers’ or public librarians’ storytime shelves when they want to fit some multicultural elements into a holiday that is dominated by spooks and sugar. 

My Friend is Sad. By Mo Willems.  Hyperion,

2007.  57 pages.  $8.99

Mo Willems’ already had two Caldecott Medals for his picture books Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale when he published his first books for beginner readers. So it came as no surprise to his fans that Elephant and Piggie would contain the same kind of humorous storytelling that appeals to both children and adults. 

My Friend is Sad opens with Gerald the elephant sighing heavily.  His good friend Piggie is concerned and decides that she will cheer him up.  Over the next few pages, she appears in various costumes of things she knows Gerald likes, but none of them make him happy.  Piggie is perplexed about what to do next, so she decides to just talk to Gerald.  The next part of the story will have both children and their parents giggling with delight.

Gerald and Piggie’s story of friendship will bring to mind Arnold Lobel’s classic Frog and Toad series, except Gerald and Piggie are targeted toward early readers.  My Friend is Sad contains only four or five words per page, all of them words a new reader can recognize by sight.  When Piggie enters in one of her costumes, the visual clues help the beginner reader sound out the more complex word on the next page, such as cowboy.  There is plenty of space between the words and the lines, helping the new reader distinguish the stop and start of words and sentences.  The text size is quite large, probably around 22 point font size, and even larger when Gerald excitedly describes to Piggie his visit from “A COOL COOL ROBOT!”   

Willems’ illustrations are simple yet expressive.  The cartoon pig and elephant seem to run across the page, and even the youngest child can read the emotions on the characters’ faces.  The pages are completely blank except for our two main characters and the lack of scenery might help a beginner reader focus better on the text.  It also provides a great starting point for discussion between parent and child – “Where do you think Gerald and Piggie are today?”  Each of Piggie’s entrances are two page spreads with no text, so the adult and child working through the book together can take a moment to identify her outfit, which should help the beginner reader with the more complex word on the next page.  Along with that, Willems applies comic strip sensibilities to the text.  Instead of having the words across the bottom of each page, he creates word bubbles encircling the lines in character specific colors (gray for Gerald, pink for Piggie) that clearly assign each statement to a character. 

Though this book is perfect for early readers that have just mastered the world of sight words, this title will not collect dust on the shelf.  The lively illustrations and hilarious interactions between Elephant and Piggie will keep young readers coming back for more and parents won’t mind hearing this silly, sweet story one more time.