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Title: Squids Will Be Squids: Fresh Morals, Beastly Fables by Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith, Molly Leach ISBN: 0-670-88135-X Publisher: Viking Childrens Books Pub. Date: 15 September, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (23 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: It Is What It Is
Comment: In children's literature, the main character usually is the cover subject and title such as "Charlotte's Web," "Froggy Plays Soccer," and even "Harry Potter," because the targeted audience is assumed not to be sophisticated enough to interpret indirect meanings.
Then there is the trio of Jon, Lane and Molly, who, like Maurice Sendak, love to thumb their noses at convention. "Squids Will Be Squids," (a play on "it is what it is," perhaps?) is not about the ocean life of squids - it is a collection of wacky stories with morals. Apparently young readers were sophisticated enough to figure that out using the cover art and cheeky tone as their guide.
The five and nine-year old I read this book with laughed with abandon even if they didn't always get the inside jokes behind the stories or the morals. Bathroom humor like "He who smelt it dealt it," was a big hit as was "It takes one to know one." I wasn't crazy about this work but I did love the title, and its exhuberant, devil-may-care attitude and the numerous double entendres. The layout and design are extraordinary. There's plenty in here to entertain little and big readers.
This is not a read alone book, though. The power in this work comes in sharing the experience. Otherwise I think it will fall flat. The moral to this review of "Squids will be Squids: Fresh Morals Beastly Fables" is "Never judge a book by its cover."
Rating: 5
Summary: An adult addicted to Scieszka
Comment: This book is very amuzing and entertaining for kids and adults alike. Perhaps we each get a different type of humour out of it, but the irony in both the writing and the visuals is cleverly created. Scieszka is talented at breaking all the rules of storytelling and this book is a great example of that.
Rating: 2
Summary: The Worst Scieszka Book Ever
Comment: I enjoyed reading The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, but I was rather disappointed with Squids Will Be Squids. Because of my initial reading experience, I think I had different expectations about reading Scieszka. I was highly disappointed with this book. I didn't find the fables amusing at all; in fact, the book didn't catch my attention and I put it down on several occasions before finally finishing it. I think one of my biggest problems with the fables is that they come across as too preachy rather than subtle. I know they are meant to mimic Aesop, who included the moral after each tale, but the way the morals are presented in the book it seems as if the author is taking a know-it-all or superior tone, which comes across as condescending. Rather than feeling that the morals teach something, I feel as if the morals are more annoying than anything. One particularly annoying tale is the story entitled "Gee, I Wonder." On the next two pages the moral is printed in very large letters reading "Think About It," as if the reader is so ignorant that he or she needs the moral to be printed in type large enough to fill two entire pages. Some of these fables seem like they would be rather abstract for young children. It seems that, in writing this book, Scieszka has shifted to an older audience. Scieszka also devotes half a page of his "Piece of Toast" fable to the overly detailed contents of a box of cereal. I felt that like the list of cereal ingredients (BHT and red #40 included), many of the stories seemed like page fillers; the main asset of this book is the artwork by Lane Smith.
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Title: The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith ISBN: 0670035696 Publisher: Viking Childrens Books Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith, A. Wolf ISBN: 0140544518 Publisher: Puffin Pub. Date: March, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scieszka, Steve Johnson ISBN: 014054285X Publisher: Puffin Pub. Date: September, 1994 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Math Curse by Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith ISBN: 0670861944 Publisher: Viking Childrens Books Pub. Date: October, 1995 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: The Book That Jack Wrote by Jon Scieszka, Daniel Adel ISBN: 067084330X Publisher: Viking Childrens Books Pub. Date: October, 1994 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
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