Do Not Open This Bookby Michaela Muntean
Book Review ![]("http://content.tlcdelivers.com/tlccontent?customerid=999&isbn=9780439698399&requesttype=bookjacket-sm") : Publishers Weekly
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Starred Review. Reverse psychology drives this voice-bubble monologue, whose curmudgeonly narrator—a pink pig in a purple stocking cap—implores readers not to turn the pages. He appears on the inside flap, sniping, "Excuse me, but did you read the front cover of this book? Are you always so rude?" Next, readers interrupt him in his woodshop, where ladders, pylons and boxes of "dangerous words" and "nouns" suggest a work in progress. "The reason you weren't supposed to open this book is because it is not yet written," he frowns, as disorganized scraps flutter about, each labeled with a single word like instant-poetry refrigerator magnets. The pig sneakily gets revenge by wondering, "What's your name?" and begging for participation in a fill-in-the-blanks rubric ("There once was a giant pest named _____.... It did not matter how many times _____ was asked to go away, _____ would not go"). Muntean makes sure he protests too much, daring readers to press their luck, and Lemaitre (the Who's Got Game? series) provides the author with tiny sidekicks—a round brown spider and violet-blue fly—who mimic his gestures and imply that he's harmless. Like Mo Willems's Pigeon books, this makes an excellent read-aloud, with abundant opportunities for hammy acting. Ages 4-8. (Mar.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Book Review : School Library Journal
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K-Gr 4–After admonishing youngsters for ignoring the volume's title, a peevish pig explains that the book is not yet written, indicating a blank page and a hodgepodge of words printed on rectangle banners. Using numerous exclamation points, the “author” repeatedly–and rudely–tells everyone to get lost so that he can get to work. Eventually realizing that the spectators won't budge, the pig demands silence, climbs a ladder, and carefully glues and nails words to the wall, forming the beginning of a story. Unfortunately, the next page-turn blows the words around and when they settle down, they now describe a ferocious mouse that appears on the scene. And so it goes, until the exasperated porker pens an insulting tale about a “giant pest,” telling readers to say their names whenever there's a blank in the narrative. Then the pig declares the book completed, heads to bed, and dreams about literary accolades. The loose-lined, messy-looking cartoons in glossy, bold colors suit the text's truculent tone. Comical details include boxes of words (labeled “verbs,” “animals,” etc.) and a spider and fly that assist and poke fun at their friend. Although the story is a bit monotone and the humor stretches thin, this offering might make a lighthearted starting point for discussions of creativity and the writing process.–Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Book Review : BookList
: From BookList, March 15, 2006, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission. : K-Gr. 3. In this playful send-up of the writing process, the illusion of trespassing boundaries is a big part of the fun. Recriminations (“Are you always so rude?”) begin on the endpapers and continue as children penetrate deeper into what a pig character identifies as his own, in-progress book. Turning the pages appears to wreak havoc on the narrative within, as words shake loose; form new, unintended sentences; and enrage the frustrated auteur--until he discovers that the unwanted intrusions have, in the circular fashion so beloved of postmodernism, created the very story he had struggled to produce. Along with hand lettering Muntean's text, LeMaitre contributes bright, comics-style pictures that clarify the occasionally dizzying concepts (the words of the story-within-the-story, for instance, are represented on individual placards, making the constant reconfigurations easy to follow). Similarities to titles such as James Stevenson's Don't Make Me Laugh (2003) are obvious, but children will be no less enraptured by the irreverent, interactive premise and will emerge with a fresh understanding of the powerful qualities of words.
JenniferMattson. : | distributed by Syndetics Solutions, LLC.: |
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