Murphy’s latest entry in his popular MathStart series of easy-to-read math concept stories focuses on the 100th day of school celebration often observed in elementary school classrooms. At the beginning of the school year a group of five children at first think the idea is 100 days of cool (rather than school), so they arrive for the first day in wild costumes and funny glasses. They rather like their misconception and the resulting esprit de corps, so they resolve to continue their pursuit of cool by sporting a different distinguishing trait each day. They try wearing special clothing, dying their hair, walking backward, decorating their bikes, and volunteering as a group, leading up to a celebratory party on day 100. A number line at the top of each spread tracks the progression of days toward 100, with additional conceptual points about fractions inserted in speech-balloon comments. The cool/school word play wears thin quickly, and the efforts of the group aren’t particularly novel or funny. Bendall-Brunello does his best with watercolor-and-pencil illustrations that attempt to make the multi-ethnic group of kids lively and peppy, but this effort remains lukewarm. (author’s note) (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-000121-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2004
Scotton makes a stylish debut with this tale of a sleepless sheep—depicted as a blocky, pop-eyed, very soft-looking woolly with a skinny striped nightcap of unusual length—trying everything, from stripping down to his spotted shorts to counting all six hundred million billion and ten stars, twice, in an effort to doze off. Not even counting sheep . . . well, actually, that does work, once he counts himself. Dawn finds him tucked beneath a rather-too-small quilt while the rest of his flock rises to bathe, brush and riffle through the Daily Bleat. Russell doesn’t have quite the big personality of Ian Falconer’s Olivia, but more sophisticated fans of the precocious piglet will find in this art the same sort of daffy urbanity. Quite a contrast to the usual run of ovine-driven snoozers, like Phyllis Root’s Ten Sleepy Sheep, illustrated by Susan Gaber (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-059848-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
The creators of Punctuation Takes a Vacation (2003) sentence readers to a good time with this follow-up. Feeling left out after the children in Mr. Wright’s class thunder outside for a Field Day, the nouns and verbs left in the classroom decide to organize events of their own. But having chosen like parts of speech for partners—“Glue, Markers and Tape stuck together. Shout wanted to be with Cheer. So did Chew and Eat.”—it quickly becomes apparent that as opposing teams they can’t actually do anything. Depicting the Nouns as objects and the Verbs as hyperactive v-shaped figures, Rowe creates a set of high-energy scenes, climaxing in a Tug of Words and other contests once the participants figure out that they’ll work better mixed rather than matched. This playful introduction to words recalls Ruth Heller’s Kites Sail High (1998) and Merry-Go-Round (1990) for liveliness, and closes with several simple exercises and games to get children into the act. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 15, 2006
ISBN: 0-8234-1982-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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