BooksForKidsBlog

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Tall Tail Tale? Tall Tale Tail?: A Tiger Tail (Or What Happened To Anya on Her First Day of School) by Mike Boldt

ANYA WOKE ONE DAY..

ONLY TO DISCOVER

THAT OVERNIGHT SHE HAD GROWN...

NOT A PIGTAIL OR A PONY TAIL...

A TIGER TAIL.

A long, striped, orange-and-black tail poses several problems. For one, wearing new jeans or fancy tights are sorta out.

Not to mention how she's going to have to explain her tail to her new class and teacher.

Mom and Dad are no help.

"IT BRINGS OUT YOUR FUN WILD SIDE," MOM SAID.

"I FELT THE SAME WAY WHEN I GOT GLASSES. YOU'RE STILL THE SAME WONDERFUL ANYA!" SAID DAD.

Anya tries to come up with outfits to conceal the tail, but they all come up, well, short. She even tries disguising the tail by wearing all the clothes in her closet. They hide the tail, but she realizes she'll never be able to go to the potty. either. She tries to pretend to be too sick to go to school, but Mom perkily pushes her along with a reminder that she doesn't want to miss the bus. But just then the bus roars past and down the street. But Dad has a Plan B:

"I GET TO DRIVE YOU TO SCHOOL ON YOUR FIRST DAY!" SAYS DAD CHEERILY.

Anya settles sadly in the back seat, sitting on her tail, and concludes that she has only one choice to avoid an embarrassing disaster of a first day. She's going to have to run away to join the circus.

It's a particularly wacky way to start the school year in Mike Boldt's brand-new tall tale, A Tiger Tail: (Or What Happened to Anya on Her First Day of School) (Simon and Schuster, 2016). Author Mike Boldt pokes gentle fun at the unfortunate wardrobe malfunctions or bad-hair days that are the usual stuff of first-day-disaster tales with the story of a girl who has a real, albeit fantastical, personal problem to deal with on the big day, with the wry pitch that Anya's not the only one who's a little, er, unconventional in her new class.

Boldt's inventive and bright artwork keeps the treatment of personal differences light by making them more than a bit far-fetched, while portraying poor Anya's all-too-real wardrobe dilemmas with wry but empathetic humor. And his closing page features a first-day photo of Anya's class that drives home the premise that we're all a little different in our own one-of-a-kind ways. Of this different look at first-day-jitters, Publishers Weekly says, "Boldt has a fine idea and the pictures to match: his digitally rendered images have a painterly, acrylic texture and sculptural exaggeration that dovetail well with the humorously over-the-top situation."

Labels: ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment



<< Home