As a digital subscriber, you’ll receive unlimited access to Horn Book web exclusives and extensive archives, as well as access to our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database.
To access other site content, visit The Horn Book homepage.
To continue you need an active subscription to hbook.com.
Subscribe now to gain immediate access to everything hbook.com has to offer, as well as our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database, which contains tens of thousands of short, critical reviews of books published in the United States for young people.
Thank you for registering. To have the latest stories delivered to your inbox, select as many free newsletters as you like below.
No thanks. Return to article
32 pp.
| Scholastic/Orchard
| September, 2016
|
TradeISBN 978-0-545-82578-8$17.99
(4)
K-3
Illustrated by
Roz Chast.
Adult poet and humorist Trillin applies his talents to ordinary childhood moments (homework stinks and so does bedtime), with mixed results. He's often funny, and more adept with meter than some children's poets, but it's hard to imagine a real child saying lines like "Whenever Grandpa's minding us..." Chast's loose-lined ink and watercolor illustrations do better at evoking the every-kid world.
(3)
K-3
Illustrated by
Roz Chast.
Dot's microscopic size hinders her ability to make friends--until meeting freakishly tall Larry. The book has humor in spades, including some meta moments (there's an "intermission"), and makes creative use of graphical elements. New Yorker cartoonist Chast's quavery art features her calling-card drawings of decidedly unglamorous-looking people, here humorously editorializing in dialogue balloon asides about the story's proceedings.
38 pp.
| HarperCollins/Cotler
| September, 1998
|
TradeISBN 0-06-027484-0$$14.95
(4)
K-3
Illustrated by
Roz Chast.
With his patched jeans and backward baseball cap, Walter appears to be a typical boy--except that he has a group of imaginary friends at his beck and call, including Homework Helper, the Thing Finder, and the Lima Bean Man, who eats Walter's beans for him. The text and color pictures are amusing, but not quite clever enough to sustain the one-joke book.