Review #10: Jimmy Zangwow's Out-Of-This-World Moon Pie Adventure

Dad:  Time yet again for another Bookie Woogie.  And little brother Elijah is sitting here with us, so we'll see if he chimes in.  Are you ready to review "Jimmy Zangwow's Out-Of-This-World Moon Pie Adventure"?
Elijah (age 3):  Read!
Dad:  Do you guys know what a Moon Pie is?
Isaac (age 10):  I had one before.  They're good.
Lily (age 5):  Yummy!
Gracie (age 8):  This book is by Tony DiTerlizzi.
Isaac:  Yeah!  The guy who made "Spiderwick" and "Kenny and the Dragon"!
Dad:  I think "Jimmy Zangwow" was his very first book.
Isaac:  What was his second book?
Dad:  A book called "Ted" about a big rabbity monster who does bad things like color on the wall.  We got that book when you were just a little bitty guy, Isaac -- but after we read it, you immediately colored on the wall.  So the book disappeared the next day.
Gracie:  Hee hee hee ha ha!
Dad:  Is there anything we can learn about Tony DiTerlizzi by reading "Jimmy Zangwow"?
Isaac:  That he has a good imagination.
Gracie:  And that he's invented a weird contraption that can actually fly.  And a kid that says "Holy Macaroni."
Isaac:  I once tried to build a spaceship.
Dad:  Did it work?
Isaac:  No.  It was just a big bunch of pieces of board nailed together flat.  It didn't do much except sit there and do nothing.
Dad:  What do you think made Jimmy's contraption work?
Isaac:  His imagination?
Gracie:  Or maybe Jimmy hurt the jalopy's feelings so it wanted to show that kid how much it could do!
Dad:  So what happened?
Lily:  Jimmy wanted a Moon Pie, and he went all the way around the world.  He went to the moon to get Moon Pies.
Gracie:  The moon is weird.  He has giant eyebrows.  Rosy cheeks.  And he must have a cold -- he has giant red nose.  And he has weird silver buttons on his pajamas.
Elijah:  And he has sunglasses too!
Dad:  Well, glasses, but not sunglasses.
Gracie:  Pinch-on glasses.  Maybe that's why his nose is red - because it hurts when the glasses are pinched on his nose.
Dad:  What did outer space look like?
Isaac:  Earth looked like a globe.  Like it would be in a little kid's imagination.
Gracie:  And Earth had little tiny words written all over it.  It shows the names of countries.  I wonder if I could search around Michigan and find a giant "M" on the ground.  Probably not.
Lily:  My favorite part was when Jimmy saw the Grum... that guy.
Dad:  The Grimble Grinder?
Lily:  Yeah - in the Milky Way.  Because I like milk and there was milk in there.
Dad:  You do love milk.  Going to the Milky Way would be like paradise for you.
Lily:  Oh yeah - I would drink it like... slurp! slurp! slurp!
Isaac:  I wouldn't like it -- if you swam in milk, you'd be all sticky.
Dad:  Tell me about the Grimble Grinder...
Gracie:  He's weird.  He has a gynormous chin with a blue nose and he's wearing striped pajamas with a weird hand/tail thingie attached to his bee-hind.
Isaac:  He has three eyes.  One is a weird eyeball on top of his head.
Gracie:  And he eats "tasty little nuggets" for dinner.
Elijah:  He's scary.
Lily:  Then Jimmy had an accident - he heard a rumble bumble and got to Mars.
Gracie:  He heard the rumble coming from the Grimble Grinder, and he crashed on Mars because of the rumble.  But Jimmy's happy!  He's happy tumbling through the air!
Elijah:  "And now I am going to get hurt."
Dad:  His jalopy gets smashed...
Elijah:  I think somebody broke it!  The Hungo Bungo did!
Gracie:  Ha Ha Ha!  Did you say Hungo Bungo!  You mean Grimble Grinder?
Elijah:  Yeah!
Gracie:  And on Mars there were nine hundred ninety-nine Mars Men that look all exactly the same.
Elijah:  I think he has a weird feet - with a wheel on it.
Dad:  Do you think that's what people on Mars would look like?
Isaac:  I don't think Mars Men look like these robots with alien heads.  I think they are green and they have big eyes.
Dad:  In "War of the Worlds" they look like slimy octopuses...
Gracie:  These Mars Men have numbers on them so they can keep track of who is who.  Number 365 is the popular one because he keeps talking.
Lily:  The Mars Men wanted Jimmy's Moon Pies.  He shared.  He was like, "Here you go, here you go, here you go, here you go Fifty-five, here you go Ninety-hundred."
Gracie:  Ninety-hundred!
Isaac:  They didn't even have that many!
Gracie:  The Grimble Grinder's tummy grumbled, grumbled, grumbled, and they were afraid of him.  So Jimmy gave him his last Moon Pie, and then he wasn't scary.
Elijah:  What was getting out of his ears?
Isaac:  Moon Pies went flying out of the Grimble Grinder's ears when he burped.
Gracie:  Barrp!
Dad:  Oh that's wonderful.
Gracie:  Barrp!
Dad:  How do you know how to do that on command?
Gracie:  Because.  Barrp!
Dad:  What has Tony DiTerlizzi brought out in our children...  First wall-coloring, now this...
Isaac:  Hey, that was when I was little.
Gracie:  Tony rocks!
Dad:  Tony does rock.
Gracie:  I don't think I would want to eat one of the Moon Pies that came out of the Grimble Grinder's ears.  They would be all waxy and gooey.
Dad:  On with the story...
Gracie:  The Grimble Grinder burped to fill up a hot air balloon so Jimmy could get back home -- just for Brusslesprout Noodlebean Casserole!
Isaac:  Ewww.  Green goo.
Elijah:  Yuck!
Dad:  So can you put this story in a nutshell?
Gracie:  The point of the story is "Imagination" and "Moon Pies."
Elijah:  I think we don't put Moon Pies in our ears.
Dad:  That's a good rule.

Mr. Moon, by Lily

Mars Man #112, by Isaac

the Grimble Grinder, by Gracie

Jimmy Zangwow, by Elijah

Author/Illustrator: Tony DiTerlizzi
Published, 2000: Simon & Schuster
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