Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Creepy Pair of Underwear!

We met Jasper Rabbit before in Creepy Carrots. Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown team up again to bring us an older Jasper in Creepy Pair of Underwear!. Jasper and his mom go shopping for new underwear. She picks out white underwear but he spies some creepy underwear, "so creepy and so comfy". Could he have just one pair?


Mom thinks they are a bit too creepy but Jasper protests that they are cool not creepy and besides he is a big rabbit now. He wears his creepy underwear to bed. With the lights out, his cool new underwear glows a ghoulish green. After changing his underwear, he buries the creepy underwear at the bottom of his hamper. When he wakes the next morning, he is wearing the ghoulish underwear!
He throws them in the garbage can but when he gets home from school, they are in his drawer. He mails them to China, but they return, he cuts them up with his mom's good sewing scissors; they are gone for good. Just to be sure, he checks his room carefully, they is no creepy underwear. Stepping into the bathroom to brush his teeth he sees them hanging from the towel rack. 

It is time for serious measures; he takes the underwear and a shovel and bikes past Crackenhopper Field to Creekhanger Hill. He digs a deep hole at the very top of the hill and throws the glowing underwear in. He buries the creepy underwear and rides home. So all is well, right? Not so fast. There might be something worse than creepy underwear.

Peter Brown's artwork is black, white, grey and ghoulish green with just a touch of orange in Crackenhopper Field.

The Sonoma County Library has ten copies.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Barkus

Newbery Medalist, Patricia MacLachlan, has written a charming beginning chapter book about a girl and her dog. Barkus is a gift from Nicky's Uncle Everton. Barkus is smart, he does tricks and he doesn't bite. Perfect! In five chapters, Barkus becomes class pet in Nicky's classroom, has a birthday party, finds and mothers a newborn kitten and goes on a backyard campout with Nicky and the kitten.
Dog lovers will love this book, I have had a dog like Barkus and I bet many of you have, too.



The full color illustrations by Marc Boutavant animate the story. The font is large and the words are well spaced. Emerging readers and older reluctant readers will find this beneficial. If you look closely at the tag on Barkus' collar, you will see it says "Book 1". A sequel is due out next year.

The Sonoma County Library has five copies. Great book for first and second grade classrooms.