Can't Make Me! Big Whoop! by Maxine Lee

FOX NEVER SMILES. HE READS, HE EATS, BUT HE NEVER SMILES.

ROMAN AND HARRISON THINK IT'S NOT HEALTHY.

But Fox's friends have a plan.

They're taking him to the zoo. The animals there are sure to make him smile.

"BIG WHOOP!" SAYS FOX.

Roman and Harrison's efforts grow more heroic. Harrison pilots a helicopter to rescue kittens from three planets. The two stroll on the surface on the moon--on stilts--made out of green cheese.

YAWN!

Roman brags that he's had a dinosaur living in his garage... for a long time.

Fox is unimpressed.

For 200,000 years?

BIG WHOOP!

Roman and Harrison are mystified. Is nothing funny... or amazing... or even possibly pleasing?

Wait. They haven't tried... BACON!

It's war between a super sophisticate fox who's seen it all, and his two friends who are not afraid to get super silly to make him smile, in Maxine Lee's Big Whoop! (Powerhouse Books, 2014). Kids who've played the betcha-can't-make-me-smile game will have another idea about how to top a sly and supercilious friend who's above it all. Whimsy wins out as Fox falls for a bacon "sanglewich" and gives them a smile... and everybody wins.