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Posts Tagged ‘Libraries’

“Sometimes in the wild, animals you might think could hurt each other actually help each other in surprising ways.” Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey provide specific examples of these unusual duos with brief text and humorous pen-and-ink, gouache and watercolor illustrations in Weird Friends: Unlikely Allies in the Animal Kingdom.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Kindergarten-Grade 3–An introduction to symbiosis. The rhino and the cattle egret, the blind shrimp and its buddy the goby, and the red phalaropes paired with the sperm whale-in all, 14 relationships are described, and many exotic animals are introduced. Certainly, the tuatara and its helpful pal the sooty shearwater will be new to youngsters. The typeface is large and easy to read, and the text is either black or white, depending on the background; pages are awash with color. The pen-and-ink, gouache, pastel, and watercolor illustrations are cartoonlike and kid-friendly, and anthropomorphism is rampant: zebras look puzzled; a shark looks angry; scared mackerels swim toward the safety of home; a hippo looks content to have oxpeckers land on its back, etc. There is a helpful pronunciation guide, and the page on where to find weird friends suggests that one must travel far and wide to locate them. This book fills a niche.
Anne Chapman Callaghan, Racine Public Library, WI
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Something weird is going on.

Miss Daisy, who teaches second grade, doesn’t know how to add or subtract. Not only that, she doesn’t know how to read or write either. She is the dumbest teacher in the history of the world!

Gr. 1-3. Second-grader A. J. hates school, but he has to admit that Miss Daisy isn’t like any teacher he has had before. She enjoys watching TV and eating chocolate just like A. J., and she is always asking her students for help solving problems in math and spelling. She also takes A. J.’s suggestion to turn the school into a video-game arcade seriously. Principal Klutz agrees to “rent out” the school for a night (and wear a gorilla suit) if the children read a million pages. Can they do it? The humorous, simply written story, first in the My Weird School series, gets its zest largely from A. J.’s lively, first-person commentary on school life and legend. Reluctant students will have no trouble relating to A. J., and breezy Miss Daisy illustrates how respecting kids and balancing learning with fun can produce positive results. The occasional cartoon line drawings are a good fit. Shelle Rosenfeld
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved –This text refers to the Library Binding edition.