Gwendolyn Grace. By Katherine
Hannigan. Greenwillow/HarperCollins. $17.99.
Paddington at the Beach. By
Michael Bond. Illustrated by R.W. Alley. Harper. $17.99.
Splat the Cat: I Scream for Ice
Cream. By Laura Driscoll. Illustrations by Robert Eberz. Harper. $16.99.
Fancy Nancy: Super Secret
Surprise Party. By Jane O’Connor. Cover illustration by Robin Preiss
Glasser. Interior illustrations by Ted Enik. Harper. $16.99.
Oh, the trials and tribulations
of playtime! Gwendolyn Grace is the
story of an enthusiastic young girl alligator who likes to swing from
chandeliers, bang on pots and pans, sled noisily down the staircase, and
otherwise have a great time with her companion duck and puppy. Unfortunately,
her mother announces that the baby is trying to sleep, so Gwendolyn Grace has
to stop doing all those things. Each time Gwendolyn Grace demonstrates
something else she would like to do, her mother says to stop it. No “swimming
in the ocean” (actually glub-glub-glub and splash in the tub). No
“chugga-choo-choo” (with the puppy tied to the tracks and the duck wearing a
bandit mask). No “doggy dress-up” using a squeaky baby carriage. None of any of
those things! In fact, Mama says Gwendolyn Grace should stop asking so loudly
about what she can do – she should whisper. So Gwendolyn Grace whispers a
request: when the baby is finished sleeping, can everyone play together? That, says Mama, is fine. And the final
page of Katherine Hannigan’s thoroughly silly yet oddly realistic book shows
Mama, Gwendolyn Grace, the wide-awake baby, the duck and the puppy all making
every bit as much noise as a suburban family of alligators can make – and all
thoroughly enjoying it. Pink-skirted Gwendolyn Grace is as full of charm as she
is of enthusiasm – and the book’s lesson about being quiet when necessary, then
having plenty of fun when quiet time (of any kind) is over, is delivered in
enough of a soft-pedaled way so that it may actually get through to human kids
who behave like Gwendolyn Grace even though they do not look like her.
Paddington Bear’s
enthusiasms tend to be quieter, at least until they misfire, and so things go
in the new edition of Paddington at the
Beach, originally published in 2008. This is a typical Michael Bond
adventure for Paddington, with R.W. Alley illustrations that make the “bear
from darkest Peru” look very much like a child – which of course he more or
less is. The whole book is about interactions between Paddington and a flock of
curious seaside seagulls. The birds comment on everything Paddington is doing:
digging a hole, making a sand castle, flying a kite, and so forth. Then one of
them notices that Paddington has a bun in his pocket, and all the birds plot
how to get it. When there are 10 of them all together, they all dive for the
bun at once as Paddington takes it out while sitting on a chair. However, all
ends happily: Paddington does not really mind feeding the bun to the birds,
because he has a marmalade sandwich under his hat, where the seagulls cannot
reach it. A pleasant, low-key warm-weather adventure, Paddington at the Beach will be fun for families that have already
made the acquaintance of the little bear and enjoy seeing him in a setting away
from his usual London haunts.
Fun in various guises and locations is also
the theme of two new books in the “I Can Read!” series – both written at Level
1 (“simple sentences for eager new readers”). Splat the Cat: I Scream for Ice Cream could be a hot-weather story,
but it is really an any-weather story, since it revolves around a field trip to
an ice-cream factory. Based on Rob Scotton characters (Splat and his best
friend, Seymour the mouse) – although not written or drawn by Scotton – the
tale is one in which Splat accidentally hits an emergency-ice-cream-release
button during the factory tour and ends up flooding the class and the factory
itself with ice cream. The class cooperatively cleans everything up – including
themselves – as all the kitten kids eat their fill, and then some. But one class member, Seymour, is missing, so
everyone gets together with brushes and buckets and their tummies to remove the
ice cream and – eventually – find Seymour, who could not call out because his
mouth was full of ice cream. The factory manager, Mr. Jellybean, is so happy
with how clean everything is that he offers the class ice cream as a reward –
but everyone has eaten so much already that, for once, the answer is no. At
least for the time being.
Fancy Nancy’s class is going
to have cupcakes and other treats, not ice cream, in Fancy Nancy: Super Secret Surprise Party, in which Jane O’Connor
weaves a typical Fancy Nancy tale, although illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser
only provides the cover art. The recurring theme here is locking one’s lips and
throwing away the key: the party must
be a surprise, so everyone has to plan in secret and not let others – including
family members and kids from other classes – know what is going on. The themes
of party preparations and secret-keeping move along in tandem as Fancy Nancy
and her friends make arrangements for decorations, foods, and supplies such as
paper plates and napkins. Finally, the reason for the surprise is revealed: the
party is for their teacher! And of course everything comes together
beautifully, everyone has fun, and there is just one remaining locked-lips
matter at the end, when Ms. Glass tells the class that her age is a secret and
is going to stay that way. Splat and Fancy Nancy are both pleasant, readily
identifiable characters whose mild adventures offer an enjoyable way to get
beginning readers involved in books that focus squarely on fun.
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