Back to School: Daddy's Back to School Shopping Adventure by Alan Lawrence Sitomer

"GET READY TO PUT SOME PEP IN YOUR STEPS, MY LITTLE PICKLE QUACKERS. TODAY WE ARE GOING BACK-TO-SCHOOL SHOPPING!"

Captain Daddy is organizing an expedition, and although thoughts of school starting don't exactly bring cheers, Jack and Jenny know that there are some pretty cool things to be found in the school supplies aisles. But Daddy has a dire warning up front:

"AND WHAT'S THE RULE FOR SCHOOL-SUPPLY SHOPPING?"

"WE ONLY BUY WHAT'S ON THE LIST," CHIME THE KIDS DUTIFULLY.

"WHY DO PARENTS ALWAYS SAY THINGS A HUNDRED MILLION TIMES," JACK MUTTERS SOFTLY.

At the store the kids tag along while all the boring stuff gets selected and checked off--pencils, lined paper, erasers. Yawn. No fun there. The kids hopefully hold up the not-so boring stuff for possible purchase. Garbage-truck pencil sharpener (to encourage recylcing?), maybe? Glow-in-the-dark glue (in case the lights go out at school?)

"HELLO? IS IT ON THE LIST?" HE REMINDS THEM.

But Captain Daddy can't resist clowning it up a bit. How does he look in a warbonnet made from paint brushes and colored markers? Bangle bracelets from rolls of colored tape?

But then Daddy spots something truly cool. It's a classic lunchbox, a dead ringer for the one he loved in third grade! He hugs it and starts to put it in their cart.

"UH, DADDY! IS IT ON THE LIST?"

Daddies do it different in Alan Sitomer's Daddy's Back-to-School Shopping Adventure (Hyperion Books, 2015), and all of Daddy's can-the-consumerism lectures go out the window when he sees his favorite, favorite school supply in all the world for sale. Dad puts it back, the struggle to stick to his own sensible rules reflected all over his face, but there's a surprise ending to celebrate in Sitomer's latest Daddy story that brings hugs all around. Abby Carter's ebullient illustrations capture all the nuances of family interaction in this comic tale of school-supplies bought, or not.

Alan Sitomer's other stories of his irrepressible dad are Daddies Do It Different, and Daddy's Zigzagging Bedtime Story.

Delete v.1.0: The Eraserheads by Kate Banks

"HOORAY FOR MISTAKES!" CRIED THE OWL.

"YES," SAID THE CROCODILE.

"THERE'D BE NOTHING TO LEARN," THE PIG NOTED.

"AND WHAT FUN WOULD THAT BE?"

"Take chances! Make mistakes!" Ms. Frizzle, the gung-ho science teacher of Magic School Bus fame, always exhorted her bemused young students, and Kate Banks' latest, The Eraserheads (Farrar, Strous, & Giroux, 2010) advocates the same theme. Her jaunty knights of the pencil cup, bright-colored cap erasers in the form of Crocodile, Owl, and Pig, attack errors with elan, erasing mistakes without remorse.

4 + 3 = 8, THE BOY WROTE.

"WHOOPS! THAT'S NOT RIGHT!" SAID THE CROCODILE. THE CROCODILE WAS GOOD WITH NUMBERS. HE ERASED THE 8. THE BOY PUT A 7 IN ITS PLACE.

Owl specializes in letters, correcting sloppy shapes and misspelled words with great skill. Pig, on the other hand, is not fussy. He just loves to "eat" any kind of mistake, as long as it doesn't involve something that might eat him!

All is well in the Land of Paper and Pencils until the Boy's drawing of a beach scene gets a bit out of hand and threatens to take the Eraserheads right off the page.

THE CROCODILE BEGAN TO ERASE THE ROAD. HE GOT CARRIED AWAY. HE RUBBED AND RUBBED UNTIL HE'D ERASED THE ROAD COMPLETELY. AND THE ERASERHEADS WERE LEFT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!

"OOOPS!" SAID THE CROCODILE. "WE'VE MADE A MISTAKE. WE'RE SUPPOSED TO CORRECT MISTAKES, NOT MAKE THEM."

Kate Banks' premise is clever, but it is Boris Kulikov's bright acrylic illustrations which bring her theme to realization with their realistically portrayed characters and backgrounds which take the reader right into the world of the Eraserheads. Banks and Krulikov are also collaborators on their highly reviewed earlier works, Max's Words and its sequel Max's Dragon.