Giant Pants by Ye Old Mark Fearing

-


Mark Fearing is the author of a graphic novel I love and reviewed in 2012, Earthling!. I also ordered three copies for the shelves of my school library a few years ago and it's always checked out (and adored) by my students. As much as I love Earthling!, I was a little unsure of Giant Pants when I read it to myself at home. Reading it out loud to a class of kids changed my first impression completely! Fearing takes a kind of silly giant with a temper (and a habit for misplacing things) and sets him in the middle of a magical kingdom filled with all the fairy tale creatures kids (and me) know and love. 

Belbum (great name, right?) is a giant. When he loses his ONLY pair of pants, he is in quite a spot. The last thing he wants to do is go into town in his underpants to ask the tailor to sew him a new pair of pants.


Belbum decides to borrow pants from one of his friends. While equal in size, Polyphemus the cyclops only has a toga to offer and Belbum needs pants. Old Grint the gnome can't help either. Lucy the unicorn suggest going pantless, like she does, and also asks if he checked his dresser, which only infuriates Belbum even more.




Finally, Belbum swallows his pride and heads into town and has four pairs of pants made, leaving one with each of his friends and returning home with a single pair. Opening the the drawer to put the new pants away, Belbum makes a surprising discovery...

My students LOVED Fearing's brightly colorful illustrations, each of which is packed with details and humor. The pace of Giant Pants is perfect for read-out-loud and presents a wonderful moment for making predictions, something I love to do with my students when reading out loud. And, of course, there is Belbum in his polka-dotted boxers on every page. In my experience, underpants humor never gets old in a picture book.

Source: Review Copy

Popular posts from this blog

Fox + Chick: The Sleepover and Other Stories by Sergio Ruzzier

-
Image
Fox + Chick : The Sleepover and Other Stories  by Sergio Ruzzier Review Copy from Chronicle Books Friends. Opposites. Inhabitants of a pastel-hued, water color world that is vaguely surreal, Fox and Chick are back for a third installment of their inviting, if curious, easy-to-read stories. In "The Sleepover," "The Hammer," and "The Surprise," Chick's odd logic is once again upending Fox's life. Happily, Fox responds with patience and even wisdom at times. To these unforgettable characters and luminous illustrations, Ruzzier brings a sublime simplicity that makes this series perfect for emerging readers, adding books with character and intelligence to the often dull world of beginning reader books. If you aren't familiar with this delightful duo, definitely check out my reviews of the first two books (links below) where I put the greatness of Ruzzier's work into historical ( Frog & Toad ) context. Then check out ALL of Ruzzier's p
Read more

Be a Tree! by Maria Gianferrari illustrated by Felicita Sala

-
Image
Be a Tree! by Maria Gianferrari illustrated by Felicita Sala Review Copy from Abrams Kids I picture-walked Be a Tree! three times before I actually read the words. Felicita Sala's illustrations for Maria Gianferrari's poetic text are mesmerizingly immersive and richly colorful within a palette of earth tones. Throughout the text, Gianferrari, who shares her inspiration for this book in the author's note ( Peter Wohleben's The Hidden Life of Trees ), gently maintains the human connection to trees and the connections (and communications) trees share with each other.  Be a Tree!  begins exuberantly, inviting the reader to "Be a tree! Stand tall. Stretch your branches to the sun. Let your roots curl, coil in the soil to ground you." From your spine/trunk to your skin/bark and your heart/pith, the words carry you inward and then zoom outward and up to the canopy and ultimately, the forest. "You are one of many trees," and our roots "twine with fung
Read more

Reading Levels: A Quick Guide to Determining if a Book Is Right for Your Reader

-
Image
While I wrote an article titled Reading Levels: How I Assign Reading Levels to Books, How the Publishers Do It and How You Can Help Your Reader Find the Right Book at the Right Time that discusses how reading levels are determined by professionals and amateurs like myself, there is more on this subject to discuss. Determining the reading level of a book from the children's section is never easy, mostly because there are several different standardized methods of determining reading levels. Add to this the fact that knowing their children's reading level is most often the only tool a parent is armed with when exploring the bookstore, library, website, etc, and the job becomes even more difficult. While I think that knowing a child's reading level is a very valuable tool if your child is reading below grade level, I think that it is a secondary consideration when finding books for children reading above, especially well above, grade level because, in most cases, content app
Read more