Archive for Humor

Dead End in Norvelt

Posted on by Leave a comment

Written by Jack Gantos

Buy on Amazon

There’s a reason the Gantos boy won the Newbery Medal. He also won the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Ficiton. The first book in the Norvelt series based on the author’s childhood is engaging and laugh out loud funny, though darkly funny in places. Miss Volker, Jack’s neighbor, is the elderly medical examiner and obituary writer for the town of Norvelt, established and named for EleaNOR RooseVELT. Miss Volker’s arthritis has gotten so bad, she must soak her hands in melted paraffin before they are of any use at all, so she enlists Jack’s help at every opportunity. Meanwhile Jack is in an extended grounding for accidentally shooting off his father’s Japanese rifle and for mowing down his mother’s corn at his father’s urging. His excitement grows as the old ladies of Norvelt start dropping like flies. After several deaths, the town newspaper publisher and the police begin to get suspicious. Is Miss Volker the culprit or is it the lone surviving original male Norvelter, adult tricycle rider Mr. Spizz? All the while, Jack is fighting constant nose bleeds, and Miss Volker is determined to help him with that.

And Jack’s father is building a runway for an airplane of questionable safety while Jack digs a bomb shelter by hand.

Fourth graders and up will enjoy the dry humor. The story will hold their attention to strengthen literacy and comprehension. Teachers, librarians, and parents will enjoy the fact that with each obituary comes a history lesson. A quick check of facts may be in order, though.

 

  • Dead End in NorveltTitle: Dead End in Norvelt
  • Author: Jack Gantor
  • Publisher: Square Fish/Farrar Strauss Giroux, 2011
  • Reviewer: Sue Poduska
  • Format: Paperback, 384 pages
  • Genre: Middle grade historical fiction, humor
  • ISBN: 978-1-250-01023-0

 

Posted in 2011, Fiction, History, Humor tagged with , ,

From Norvelt to Nowhere

Posted on by Leave a comment

Written by Jack Gantos

Buy on Amazon

Get ready for more antics from that Gantos boy, hero to fourth grade boys and girls everywhere. From his Halloween costume that looks like the local serial killer to digging a fallout shelter right into his family’s septic tank, Jack’s misadventures are memorable and hilarious. Miss Volker, Jack’s best friend, becomes the last old lady in Norvelt, courtesy of a series of poisoned Girl Scout cookies. Then Eleanor Roosevelt dies and Jack’s cross country adventure begins. Jack escorts Miss Volker to Mrs. Roosevelt’s grave. They get word of her sister’s death in Florida. With detectives and killers alike following them, they take a zig-zag course in various vehicles, including a hand-painted VW Beetle, a hearse, an amphibious vehicle, and a police motorcycle with a side car. They take a train to Washington, DC and buy a beetle at a Foggy Bottom used car lot. Jack, at age fourteen, drives them to Tennessee and to Florida, with Miss Volker warming her hands in everything from split pea soup to a bucket of coals in the car. Although Jack tends to get all his literary information from Illustrated Classics, there is enough about Moby Dick and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to make the references interesting and informative, and to encourage further literary activity. The historical references are also sneakily educational and funny.

The publisher’s website, mackids.com, has a lot of information about the author and his books. The author’s website, http://www.jackgantos.com/, is a good companion guide.

From Norvelt

  • TITLE: From Norvelt to Nowhere
  • AUTHOR: Jack Gantos
  • PUBLISHER: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2013
  • REVIEWER: Sue Poduska
  • ISBN: 978-0-374-37994-0
  • FORMAT: Hard cover, 278 pages
  • GENRE: Historical Fiction, Humor, History
Posted in 2013, Fiction, History, Humor tagged with ,

Touch Blue

Posted on by Leave a comment

Written by Cynthia Lord

Buy on Amazon

Eleven-year-old Tess Brooks is looking forward to meeting her new foster brother, Aaron. Will she be able to handle all the baggage that he arrives with? Tess is a happy, well-adjusted girl who knows her own mind. She also knows the tiny Maine island on which she lives. The island is so small that the state is threatening to close the one-room school she and the other island children attend. Her mother is the teacher, which means her family would need to relocate if they lose her mother’s income. Partly as a response to the school situation, several families accept foster children to have more students. Tess’s family adds a thirteen-year-old boy whose mother struggles with drugs. The reader is invited aboard a lobster boat and also gets a big dose of life in a small town. Tess is a quirky mix of superstitious eleven-year-old and caring sister. Aaron has a chip on his shoulder, but he’s ultimately pragmatic, loving, and talented. Other wonderful characters include little sister Libby, irritating neighbor and nemesis Eben, and nosy neighbor Mrs. Coombs.

Lord deals with all the issues facing Tess with her usual compassion and tenderness, but these are large issues. Fourth grade readers will find a lot of information about how an uncertain future, a shaky past, and a sometimes-painful present can affect people. We can’t always control the situation, but we’re stronger than we think. Touch Blue has won numerous awards and appears on many reading lists, including Book Page Best Children’s Books of 2010. Learn about this and more titles from Lord’s website: www.cynthialord.com.

  • Touch BlueTitle: Touch Blue
  • Author: Cynthia Lord
  • Publisher: Scholastic, 2010
  • Reviewer: Sue Poduska
  • Format: Paperback, 186 pages
  • Genre: Middle grade, Coming of age, Maine, Foster children
  • ISBN: 978-0-545-03532-3
Posted in 2010, Contemporary, Humor tagged with ,

The Nearly Honorable League of Pirates: Magic Marks the Spot

Posted on by Leave a comment

Written by Caroline Carlson
Illustrated by Dave Phillips

Buy on Amazon

This first book of a new series about pirates is absolutely charming. While the pirates consider themselves very seriously they are far from fearsome.

The story has everything a good pirate tale is expected to contain: grog, swords, treasures, ships, peg legs and eye patches. It even has more than normal with the inclusion of magic, a boarding school and a girl who will only ever and always become a pirate.

Fourth grade readers, fifth grade readers and beyond will enjoy reading this independently while third graders will enjoy hearing it as a read aloud. Many literacy skills can be reinforced in large or small group settings while reading this book, including but not limited to: cause and effect, inference, following clues, use of humor and letter writing skills.

For a more informal enjoyable experience, it would be a great book club choice for friends to share and discuss.

Interspersed in the story are letters of surprising formality and comic use of everyday phrases between pirates, the head mistress of a girls’ finishing school and the main character. There are also supposed clips from the Pirates Guide Book, local newspapers and want ads.

It is a completely enjoyable book. Readers will be looking for the sequel even before they finish this one.

  • Magic Marks the SpotTitle:  The Nearly Honorable League of Pirates: Magic Marks the Spot
  • Author: Caroline Carlson
  • Illustrator: Dave Phillips
  • Publisher: Harper, 2013
  • Reviewer: Elizabeth Swartz
  • Format: Hardcover/344 pgs.
  • ISBN:  978-0-06-219434-3
  • Genre: Fantasy
Posted in 2013, Fantasy, Fiction, Humor tagged with , ,

Robbers! True Stories of the World’s Most Notorious Thieves

Posted on by Leave a comment

Written by Andreas Schroeder

Illustrated by Remy Simard

Buy on Amazon

Readers on the 4th grade reading level and up who like adventure and action will enjoy the drama and intrigue in Robbers! True Stories of the World’s Most Notorious Thieves! Presented  in chapters this 166-page text provides stories of famous historical robberies. Each chapter presents one robber, an in-depth look at one of their heists, and briefer descriptions of their other crimes. From a team of thieves who stole the Mona Lisa to an individual who hijacked a plane and parachuted as an escape, Robbers! illustrates the creative approaches criminals have taken.

But Robbers! doesn’t only highlight illegal successes. Through stories of criminal mistakes, such as a pair of thieves who didn’t know how to fly their get-away plane to a team who forgot to run the dishwasher (and thus left numerous fingerprints for police to use), this book shows how crooks get caught. Robbers! details criminal techniques such as how to case a bank, how to run pearls over your teeth to determine if they are genuine or fake, and how to act your way through a situation to bluff authority figures. This is information some adults may not want in the hands of young readers so this book might not end up on third grade reading lists; on the other hand, the stories do teach the values of attention to detail, careful work and determination and the book might intrigue risk-seeking students who need practice with their reading skills. A book that highlights criminal action could glorify the thieves or show them as villains. Robbers!, however, presents these histories with a non-judgemental tone. The book concludes with a robber-turned-good – the story of Willie Sutton, a bank-robbing addict who eventually turned his energies to helping banks improve their security.

Each story is accompanied by brief cartoon-style illustrations placed in-line with the text. This presentation style requires the cartoon caption to be read as a part of the main text and may confuse some readers, but the illustrations themselves help lighten the book. Every spread includes at least one illustration and some pages include a call out note with additional information. Backmatter includes a chapter-by-chapter bibliography, an index and further reading. Unfortunately all of the books listed in the further reading are at least twenty years old, so may be out-dated and hard for young readers to access.

  • RobbersTITLE: Robbers! True Stories of the World’s Most Notorious Thieves
  • AUTHOR: Andreas Schroeder
  • ILLUSTRATOR: Remy Simard
  • PUBLISHER: Annick Press
  • REVIEWER: Heather L. Montgomery
  • EDITION: Paperback: 166 p.
  • ISBN: 978-1554514403
  • GENRE: Nonfiction, History
  • LEXILE: 1230GN
Posted in 2012, Contemporary, Graphic Novel, History, Humor, Nonfiction, Social Studies

Thrice Upon a Marigold

Posted on by Leave a comment

Written by Jean Ferris

Buy on Aamzon

Happily-ever-after isn’t as easy as it sounds.  King Christian and Queen Marigold are as much in love as ever.  They are thrilled with their new baby girl, Poppy.  Marigold thinks the only thing she has to worry about is what gifts the fairies might give at Poppy’s Welcome Party.  Then, the unthinkable happens.  Princess Poppy is kidnapped by the ex-torturer-in-chief and the ex-poisoner-in-chief as revenge for losing their jobs when the evil Queen Olympia was removed from the throne.  That was in the prior books of the Marigold trilogy.  This book brings in Phoebe and Sebastian, the children of the Terrible Twos, Boris and Vlad, the torturer and poisoner in question.  They are ashamed of their heritage and keep as low a profile as possible.  Phoebe is the librarian and Sebastian is a blacksmith.  Phoebe intercepts a message about the kidnapping and, with Sebastian’s help, tries to alert the castle that a plot is brewing, but they are not in time.  They ask if they can go along on the rescue mission because they know Boris and Vlad better than anyone.  They each have the secret desire to make up for the bad things their fathers have done.  It seems, too, that Phoebe and Sebastian understand one another better than anyone else ever has.  The madcap rescue has all the elements of an epic adventure: royal guards, a retired wizard, an elephant and a fire-breathing dragon as well as a dramatic rescue of both baby and mother.  There could even be love in the works, too.

With a delightful, tongue-in-cheek voice and zany plot twists, this would be a great class read aloud.  Students might demand to hear all three books in the series!  Jean Ferris says on her website (http://www.jeanferris.com/) that she had no intention of writing a sequel to Once Upon a Marigold,  but, in that story, she wanted to give her readers the message to be ready for whatever comes along in life.  She now has written two more Marigold books and introduces readers to Phoebe and Sebastian.  These two characters have not had an easy life.  A Venn diagram could be the perfect way to compare Phoebe and Sebastian’s character traits as a literacy activity.  Thrice Upon a Marigold would make a fun book trailer, too.

  • Thrice Upon a MarigoldTITLE: Thrice Upon a Marigold
  • AUTHOR: Jean Ferris
  • PUBLISHER: Harcourt
  • REVIEWER: Risa Brown
  • EDITION: Hardcover, 250 p.
  • ISBN: 978-0-547-73846-8
  • GENRE: Fairy tales, fantasy
  • LEXILE: 890, Reading level 4.7
Posted in 2013, Fiction, Humor, Mystery

Taming of the Shrew

Posted on by Leave a comment

Written by Cass Foster

Buy on Amazon

Why does Shakespeare endure after over 400 years? It’s not the stories told. Everyone agrees that his stories are mostly borrowed from other sources. Although most of the stories are very appealing. It really doesn’t even matter whether he was the blue-collar bard from Stratford-upon-Avon or some nobleman looking to hide his body of work. He endures because of the language. If there wasn’t a word to express his thoughts, he made one up. As a means of introducing this language to fifth graders and above, Foster created a series of works called “Sixty-Minute Shakespeare.” This is the seventh in the series. In these volumes, he condenses some very long plays for those with short attention spans. All of the language is Shakespeare. He tries very hard to preserve that language. Remember: even the bard was constantly tinkering and cutting scenes, so condensing has a long tradition.

As a play, the work is meant to be performed. The stage directions and blank space for notes are useful toward that end. Foster even includes a section on how to perform what he calls stage combat, including slaps. Of course, this makes the book itself the ultimate reading activity. Just perform the play.

The author’s page on the publisher’s website, www.getshakespeare.com, also provides a lot of information for teachers and the merely curious.

As a story, Taming of the Shrew is firmly entrenched in the world of sixteenth century England. A younger sister cannot marry until her older sister finds a husband. The older sister refuses to be obedient and demure as women of good breeding were expected to be. But the themes of social status and the roles of women are universal. The scheming and interactions make the play exciting and fun. The treatment of women is not politically correct for today, but the play is very funny if you can ignore that.

  • Taming of the ShrewTITLE: Taming of the Shrew
  • AUTHOR: Cass Foster
  • PUBLISHER: Five Star Publications, Inc.
  • REVIEWER: Sue Poduska
  • EDITION: 2013
  • ISBN: 978-1-58985-220-4
  • GENRE: Paperback, Shakespeare
  • LEXILE: 950
Posted in 2013, Contemporary, Fiction, History, Humor

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again

Posted on by Leave a comment

Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Illustrated by Joe Berger

Buy on Amazon

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is determined to put herself back together even though the Tooting family thinks they are in charge of the refurbishing project.  Dad loses his job and decides to fix those things around the house that he has not had time for.  He is so overzealous with his home projects that Mom buys him a camper van to restore.  She works at Unbeatable Motoring Bargains and it was a good deal.  He and Jem (short for Jeremy) work for nearly two months lovingly taking things apart, cleaning and oiling them, and putting them together.  The first time they start up the van, Jem notices a strange noise from the engine which he interprets as spark plugs misfiring.  To find spark plugs that old, they must go to a salvage yard that has been in operation for years.  In wandering amongst the wrecks, they find a huge engine in the top of a tree along with a steering wheel and a hand crank. Dad gets very excited and adds it to their camper van along with a few other parts that belong with the engine.  Then, the next time they drive it, it drives itself, even going off a cliff.  That activated a huge pair of wings and the camper van flew! The van takes the Tooting family to Paris and Cairo.  Someone in the family had each wanted to go there so they didn’t think about the camper van taking them.  In Paris, they find the headlamps.  In Cairo, they find the wheels.  But it is in Madagascar, when they find the car’s body, that Jem realizes these discoveries are not coincidences.  The car even gives them her name with two long whirrs and two short bangs.  After the car is in one piece, Jem also realizes that a villain named Tiny Jack has been after Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the whole time.  To escape Tiny Jack and his evil Nanny, they accidentally discover another working bit: the Chronojuster –   which is just a fancy word for time travel gizmo.

Ian Fleming wrote the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which involved the Potts family and their adventures with the car.  This new series has a new family and a new set of adventures but, the magical car has all its old charm.  This is the sequel and it ends with a cliffhanger that leads into the next book: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time.  The characters are delightfully eccentric, even the villain.  This would make a good class read aloud.  The fourth grade reading level makes this a good choice for reading buddies because the story would engage younger readers as well.  Students can chart the countries where Chitty takes the Tootings for a geography and literacy activity.  There is an activity kit, a teacher’s guide and a book trailer available at the publisher’s website: (http://www.chittyfliesagain.com/).

  • Chitty BangTITLE: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again
  • AUTHOR: Frank Cottrell Boyce
  • ILLUSTRATOR: Joe Berger
  • PUBLISHER: Candlewick, 2011
  • REVIEWER: Risa Brown
  • EDITION: Paperback, 213 p.
  • ISBN: 978-0-7636-6353-7

 

Posted in 2013, Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, Humor

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made

Posted on by Leave a comment

Written and Illustrated by Stephan Pastis

Buy on Amazon

Timmy Failure is anything but. According to him, he is the founder, president and CEO of the best detective agency in town – no, make that the entire world. With his trusty business partner, his 1,500 pound pet polar bear named Total, they make up the brains and brawn behind his brilliant organization: Total Failure, Inc.

But it’s difficult to build a billion-dollar empire. He has to work out of his mom’s closet and he uses her Segway (a.k.a. the Failuremobile) to get around town. Mom had only one rule about using the Segway, which was to use it “Never. Ever. Ever.”

As Timmy tells his story, readers will quickly realize that he, in fact, can’t solve anything. He’s like a young Michael Scott from The Office, arrogant and clueless, yet somehow endearing. When Mom’s Segway goes missing, Timmy smells sabotage. He’s convinced his archrival, the One Whose Name Shall Not Be Uttered, had something to do with it. As Total busies himself with eating and napping, he has no choice but to enlist his idiot best friend, Rollo Tookus, to help him solve the case. If only Rollo spent less time studying and more time being like Timmy, he wouldn’t have ended up locked in a bank safe wearing a daisy costume. If only. In the end, all is restored and Timmy’s sweet side revealed, but not before he crashes a car into his teacher’s living room with a polar bear in the passenger seat. Just another day in Failure-land.

Pastis, the creator of the popular comic strip Pearls Before Swine, expertly uses his black and white illustrations to give comic punch to already absurd situations. A few of the vocabulary words will have kids at this reading level scratching their heads (expenditures, subterfuge, mendacity), but their appearance near drawings offers helpful context. Fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Big Nate will likely gobble up this book in one sitting. Fourth graders may also enjoy Timmy Failure’s own blog with cameo entries from his friends (http://www.failureisanoptionblog.tumblr.com) as well as the official book site, which includes author info, news, and games. (http://timmyfailure.com/index.html)

  • Timmy FailureTitle: Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made
  • Author: Stephan Pastis
  • Publisher: Candlewick Press
  • Reviewer: Lauren Abbey Greenberg
  • Hardcover: 294 pages
  • ISBN: 978-0-7636-6050-5
  • Genre: Fiction / Humor
Posted in 2013, Contemporary, Fiction, Humor

Frogged

Posted on by Leave a comment

Written by Vivian Vande Velde

Buy on Amazon

Another unique and fun fairy tale from the princess of fractured tales, Vivian Vande Velde.  Princess Imogene is almost thirteen, a time when she should embrace her princess-ness and her princess duties.  But she is gangly where most princesses are beautiful, prone to clumsiness and loud outbursts.  As she studies the book, The Art of Being a Princess, she finds that she doesn’t seem to be the kind of princess who is ‘as good as she is beautiful.’  She tries very hard to be good, but she seems to be missing part of the formula.  Trying to escape reading the irritating book, Imogene walks to mill pond.  To her surprise, a frog talks to her.  He convinces her that he is a prince under a magic spell.  Trying to be kind and good, Imogene kisses him to remove the spell.  Too late, Imogene discovers that he has tricked her.  The spell jumps on her, the “prince” is really the wainwright’s son and the only way she can turn back into her human form is to get someone to kiss her.  She has a problem with this solution.  She simply can’t bring herself to trick someone else.  It is so un-princess-like.  So Imogene begins quite an adventure trying to find a way to remove the spell and hoping to get home in time for her birthday.  She becomes part of a traveling band of actors, some she wouldn’t mind turning into a frog, but she stays true to her good heart.  Still the road back to the castle is twisted and long (especially for a frog), but she finds her way home where family helps her find the perfect solution.

Imogene may not be a perfect princess, but she is one that young readers can understand.  She encounters quirky characters from farmers to actors to royalty, but she is always herself.  She talks a lot about not being perfect, but her moral compass is firm.  Lots of humor, interesting plot twists and surprises, this would make a great class read aloud.  Have the students make a chart of all the lies that are told to Imogene and her reaction to them as a literacy activity.

  • FroggedTITLE: Frogged
  • AUTHOR: Vivian Vande Velde
  • PUBLISHER: Harcourt
  • REVIEWER: Risa Brown
  • EDITION: Hardcover, 198 p.
  • ISBN: 978-0-547-94215-5
  • GENRE: Fantasy, adventure

 

Posted in 2013, Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, Humor
« Older Entries Recent Entries »