BIG PLANS

With as much emphasis as mammoth red display type can convey, a lad—plainly on a time-out, to judge from his opening-scene position in the corner of a classroom—proclaims that he has “BIG PLANS! BIG PLANS, I SAY!” Accompanied by a sycophantic mynah bird (“I’m in!”), wearing a fierce scowl and snapping orders right and left, he marches from boardroom to the moon across Smith’s busy digital collages. On the way, this poster boy for unbridled ambition trumpets his intentions to take over a corporation, win a football game, oust the local mayor, demote the president to third in charge (behind the bird), order a rocket ship built and leave his message written in rocks across the face of the Moon for the entire world to read. Who’s to stop him? Certainly not fans of top-volume stories and storytimes, who will happily troop along in his wake, undoubtedly hatching some BIG PLANS of their own. (Picture book. 5-9)