Review #6: Shark and Lobster's Amazing Undersea Adventure

Dad:  This week's book is "Shark and Lobster's Amazing Undersea Adventure" by Viviane Schwarz.
Isaac (age 10):  This book is one of my favorites.  It's so funny.
Dad:  So, what's the first thing you notice about this book?
Isaac:  It's sideways.  You have to hold it sideways in order to read it.
Gracie (age 8):  I think that's cool!
Isaac:  That's good for this book.  The characters are funny and confused, so the book is the exact same way too.
Dad:  Tell me about the story...
Lily (age 5):  A shark and a lobster and little tiny cuttlefishes were building a fortress to keep tigers away.  But then they realized their fortress was just a pile of rocks...
Gracie: ...so they freaked out...
Lily: ...and they went down to get a great big giant monster, and they wrapped it around themselves.  But then the monster was chasing them!
Isaac:  That monster is very, very ugly.  Uglier than other monsters.  And... is it wearing tapshoes?
Gracie:  It has a fork-nose and eyelashes.  It's ugly!
Isaac:  Why does it have little windows on it?
Gracie:  You can see a ship and fish bones inside it.
Isaac:  I think it would be hard for the monster to grab anyone because its hands are on its eyeballs.
Gracie:  I like how there are mysteries in this book.  Like - what kind of monster IS that fish-thing?  And how did it get there?  How did they learn about tigers?  I don't understand... they tied the monster in a knot?
Isaac:  How did they tie him?  He was ten times bigger than them!
Dad:  Those must be very strong cuttlefish...
Isaac:  Ha ha ha!  Yeah!
Dad:  So this book raises lots of silly questions.  Does it bother anyone that we don't know the answers, or is that part of the fun?
Gracie:  (dramatically) It drives me crazy!
Dad:  Goofball, you just said you liked the mysteries!
Isaac:  I wonder how the lobster and the shark heard about tigers?  They live miles and miles and miles away from tigers.
Gracie:  Maybe there's a traveling crab that they are friends with... and he traveled to a zoo... and he saw tigers.
Isaac:  Or maybe it was whales because they do move back and forth from Antarctica to hotter places...
Gracie:  Don't get all "schooly..."  This is supposed to be fun.
Dad:  How about the pictures?
Gracie:  Borders!
Dad:  You mean panels?  Yep, everything is in boxes like in comic books.
Isaac:  And whenever somebody is talking they put it in "word bubbles."
Lily:  I like the little tiny cuttlefishes because they are cute and you can barely see any of them...  they're just little tiny black dots.
Isaac:  The pictures weren't drawn with a perfect straight line or really serious.  They are kind of bumpy and -- at first it seems like it wouldn't take much work... but if you really look at it, it would be kind of hard to do that.
Dad:  The lines are loose...  It's a loose style of drawing.
Gracie:  Kids would really love this book.  I really love this book.  Hey, (pointing at a picture) what is that?
Dad:  That's one of the monster's eyes.
Gracie:  It's smaller than the cuttlefish!
Dad:  (laughing) You guys love those cuttlefish!  They must be the stars of the show.

no tigers, by Isaac

looking at cuttlefish with a magnifying glass, by Gracie

great big giant monster, by Lily

Author/Illustrator: Viviane Schwarz
Colorer: Joel Stewart
Published, 2006: Candlewick Press
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Review #5: Wave

Dad:  Gracie picked today's story, and it's my favorite book of 2008.  We're reviewing "Wave" by Suzy Lee.
Gracie (age 8):  Maybe the girl in this book is really the author when she was little.
Isaac (age 10):  Some of it might be one of her experiences at the beach.
Gracie:  I like this book because everything is made with pencils, just gray and white and black.  But then when you get to the waves, it's different colors -- it's done in paint, and it's blue.
Isaac:  The person who made this book likes blue.
Gracie:  And seagulls.
Isaac:  The seagulls do everything the girl does.
Gracie:  They stand still when she stands....
Lily (age 5):  The girl runs away really fast and the seagulls run away really fast...
Gracie:  They're mad when the girl is mad...
Isaac:  She goes away, "bye-bye," and the seagulls go too.  They follow everything she does.
Dad:  Now, you guys were pretty loud and excited when the waves come...
Isaac:  It was crazy!
Gracie:  The waves felt angry, and that's why they splashed her!
Lily:  The waves were wanting to splash the girl because she stuck out her tongue.
Gracie:  There was a lot of splashing.  The waves were getting bigger!
Isaac:  It was like, Uh oh - that's not going to be good!
Gracie:  The waves were HUGE!  OH MY GOODNESS!  Too big to fit on the page!
Dad: ...then - Crash!
Lily:  She's soaked.
Gracie:  She's DRENCHED!  And now her dress is blue.
Isaac:  The sand is blue...
Gracie:  The shells and the treasures are blue...  And the sky!  Now it's blue!
Lily:  The waves changed the whole entire earth.  Before it was all gray, but now it's a whole bunch of blue stuff.
Isaac:  When the girl first gets to the beach there's not too much excitement.  But when she gets the big splash, the water opens her eyes and she starts seeing things she never did before.  She starts noticing all the things on the ground.  It opened her eyes to what was out there.
Lily:  The waves were like a friend.
Gracie: ...a friend that shared a whole bunch of shells and starfish.
Lily:  And the waves shared the way to see how the world really was.

swimming, by Lily


big splash, by Isaac

raining, by Gracie

Author/Illustrator: Suzy Lee
Published, 2008: Chronicle Books
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Review #4: Holes

Dad:  For our bedtime story, we recently spent a few nights reading "Holes" by Louis Sachar...
Gracie (age 8):  It's about digging holes.
Isaac (age 10):  It was exciting.  There were lots of parts where, at first you don't understand what's happening, but later in the book it tells you more about it.
Gracie:  Like Stanley's dirty rotten, pig stealing, great-great-grandfather!
Dad:  So that's an example where, at first you don't understand who he was...
Isaac:  Yeah - but now we know why they called him that.
Gracie:  Dirty rotten, pig stealing, great-great-grandfather!
Dad:  I like how there were a whole bunch of things that seemed separate from each other, but as the book goes on...
Isaac: ...all the stories start combining into one.
Dad:  So what happens?
Isaac:  Zero ran away from the camp because he was mad, and Stanley chased after him...
Gracie:  Camp Green Lake -- it's a terrible camp.  You would rather go to jail than that camp.
Isaac:  He was gone for eight or nine days, and there was no water or anything.  But he brought his shovel with him, and he dug a hole under a boat that said "Mary Lou," and they found some old spiced peaches...
Gracie:  Sam the Onion Man had a donkey named Mary Lou.  But Zero and Stanley thought the boat was named after a person, not a donkey.  They said, "Man, she must have been important if someone named a boat after her.  I bet she looked great in a bathing suit next to her boyfriend."  That was SO FUNNY!  I'm imagining Mary Lou in a bathing suit right now, and it is HILARIOUS!  Do you hear me people?  HILARIOUS!
Isaac:  I can tell you why the kids dig holes...
Gracie:  No!  We don't want to spoil the mystery for the listeners...
Isaac:  WHAT???
Gracie:  Shame on you!
Isaac:  People are not just going to go read the book after they read this!
Dad:  Well, they might-- that's why we're doing this!  A book review is supposed to make it exciting for people so they'll want to go out and read it themselves...
Gracie:  Yah!
Dad:  So, Lily, what did you think was exciting?
Lily (age 5):  The lizards in the book had yellow spots and glowing red eyes and very sharp black teeth and a loooong white tongue.  They like to live in holes.  And no matter what, if the lizards bite you... you will have to die.
Dad:  Oh no!
Lily:  But they don't bite you if you have onion blood, because they do not eat onion blood.
Isaac:  The ending was one of the best parts.
Dad:  Gracie was so excited, she couldn't sit still!
Isaac:  They were surrounded by yellow spotted lizards in a hole...  It made me feel worried...
Gracie:  I was freaked out.  And when I'm freaked out, I jump around and get scared.
Lily:  I remember when it was happening, I didn't move at all.  I thought there was a lizard... crawling... up... my... face...
Dad:  Any last comments?
Isaac:  It's a good book.  You really should read it.  I wish I could tell you more about it... but I can't.  They won't let me.

spitting into the hole, by Lily

Mary Lou in a bathing suit, by Gracie

yellow spotted lizard, by Isaac

Author: Louis Sachar
Published, 1998: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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