Blame Mother Goose? Once Upon a Slime by Andy Maxwell

Once upon a time, Goldilocks visited her old friends, the Three Bears. Sure, they had gotten off to a rocky start--what with the whole porridge thing. But now everyone was totally over it.

Plus--she thought, "Who could stay mad at the girl with such beautiful golden locks?"

It's time to let bygones be bygones!

So Goldilocks decides to drop in on the Bears, but when she opens the door--

SPLORT!

She's slimed! It's green! It's gross! It's disgusting!

Goldie blames her frenemies, the Bears, for taking revenge for her housebreaking, but when she confronts them, they deny the crime. And while they're arguing against their guilt with Goldie, it's the Three Bears who get the goopy slop dropped on them.

"YAY! A WHODUNNIT!" yells Baby Bear.

Goldie calls in Granny, who loves a mystery, and Goldie, Granny, and the Bears set out to interview the usual suspects in the neighborhood--Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, who have each other for an alibi, Rapunzel, who's not quite above it all--and all get slimed along the way. Could the Three Little Pigs be the perps? They do love muck.... But what about Prince Charming? He's got minions. Do he and Snow White have a couple thing for surprise chartreuse slime parties?

Everybody's gotta get slimed in this fractured fairy tale crime filled with familiar characters, in Andy Maxwell's fractured fairy cum mystery tale, Once Upon a Slime (Little, Brown Books, 2018), loaded with quips, puns, and snappy comebacks and illustrated in inspired cartoon style by artist Samantha Cotterill, who plants clever clues to the real perpetrator along the slime crime trail for sophisticated readers to sleuth out. Perfect for older primary readers who are on top of the trope of the fractured nursery story, this one is funny addition to the re-framed fairy tale genre. In their tongue-in-cheek review, Kirkus Reviews writes, "Cotterill's artwork—ink on watercolor paper with digitally added color—is loose and lively, and re-readers (and savvy-eyed first timers) are given hints to the real slimer."

#TooManyTweets! Wordy Birdy by Tammi Sauer

HI! I'M WORDY BIRDY.

REALLY!

THIS BOOK CONTAINS LOTS OF OF THINGS....

Wordy Birdy can't even wait until the first page of the book. She starts talking on the book jacket flap, blabs all over the endpapers, and prattles through the title page, promising drama, heart, humor, and... a few words about tuna salad!

She spouts off about her favorite and un-favorite foods (spaghetti, and tuna salad), jabbers about her family tree ("My cousin is a penguin... really!"), and can deliver a steady stream of questions in the blink of an beak ("Is Bigfoot real? Are we there yet?").

BUT SHE NEVER STOPS TALKING LONG ENOUGH TO GET THE ANSWERS.

Listening is not Wordy Bird's thing. But her friends Raccoon and Rabbit put up with the steady stream of tweeting because--well, they don't exactly know why they do! They are just...friends, and when Wordy Birds ignores some signs she should pay attention to--

DANGER! WRONG WAY!
DON'T GO ANY FURTHER!

--do they abandon her to her own fate? Do they save their own skins? Do they flee in fear?

"WE DO NOT!"

It's friends to the end even in the face of a barrage of blather from the wordy one, in Tammi Sauer's newest, Wordy Birdy (Doubleday and Company, 2018). At least there are no awkward silences with Sauer's loquacious bird on the page, as her loyal buddies bail her out of a bad scene with a bear and share cake and conversation as they celebrate their escape.

It's a silly story of some serious friendships with the blabby bird even chatting occasionally with the reader. With gloriously comedic illustrations by the talented Dave Mottram, whose clever artwork is all over the page along with Sauer's text, this is a perfect readaloud for a chatterbox kid or two you may know!

How Much Do I Love You? My Sweet Little Megabyte by Jeffrey Button

How do I love you? Let me count the ways.

And in Jeffrey Button's little board book, My Sweet Little Megabyte (Little, Simon, 2016), the counting is in bits and bytes, mega, giga, and tera.

There's no mistake.

My heart is yours.

With bits of wit and a protocol of hyper text affection, the authors says his cache of cookies is all for this app of his I, all 4 U, not virtual but--IRL! In this sweet little Valentine's book of digital wordplay, we have an inexpensive little greeting card of a board book for youngsters coded for that special day of endearments.

Off the Cliff? Leaping Lemmings by John Briggs

ALL LEMMINGS LOOK ALIKE AND, SOUND ALIKE, AND ACT ALIKE.

But Larry is a lemming who marches to a different drummer. In fact, instead of squeaking, he plays the bongos. Instead of tunneling underground, he swims with the seals. When the other lemmings munch on moss, Larry orders pepperoni pizza.

YES, THIS LEMMING WAS AN ODD DUCK.

While the other members of his species prepare to leap off the cliffs, Larry spends some time with the puffins on the precipice, but finds that is a cliffhanger.

But still Larry is lonely for his fellow lemmings. He tries calling a lemming assembly and raises the question:

SHOULD ALL LEMMINGS BE THE SAME?

Yes! comes the common consensus of his species.

Poor Larry decides to try to live with the polar bears. But he soon figures out they want to have him over for lunch--and not as a guest!

It's hard being an outlier among the lemmings, who seem to live for that last leap! But this little iconoclast figures that the only way to save his species from their own folly is to become their leader!

Can Larry transform his species? That's the issue in John Brigg's Leaping Lemmings! (Sterling Books, 2016). In this humorous look at the issue of nature vs. nurture, Larry gives it the old college try in this light-hearted look at changing lemming nature, in a slight spoof at the difficulty of changing human nature as well. Like most human reformers, Larry's results are mixed, as Nicola Slater's inspired comic illustrations portray so well. "Hilarious storytelling is coupled with equally hilarious scenes," says Booklist.

What to Say If You Don't Have A Dog: I Didn't Do My Homework Because... " by Davide Cali

My baby sister used it for a teething ring?... My mom cleaned out my backpack?... It's in my backpack--somewhere! Honest!... My big brother used it to make paper planes and flew them over the river?....

Lame-O excuses for the lack of homework are legion, but Davide Cali's I Didn't Do My Homework Because... (Chronicle Books, 2014) comes up with some creative lollapaloozas for the lexicon.

"We had a problem with carnivorous plants."

"We were attacked by Vikings."

"Giant lizards invaded my neighborhood."

"My family discovered oil in our backyard."

While Cali's lamentations are quite inventive, the real fun with this one is in the playful artwork contributed by Benjamin Chaud, whose retro-styled character struggles valiantly against interlopers determined to get him in trouble with his teacher. In single- and double-page spreads, Chaud extends the text by hiding the textbook and homework in question somewhere in his elaborate illustrations--at the end of the giant lizard's tongue, for example, just before he swallows it.

Most teachers can honestly say they've read the book on homework excuses, and this one is no exception. Teacher, it turns out, spots a book on the boy's desk and holds it up for the class to see, and fittingly, its title is I Didn't Do My Homework Because..... and she's read it!

Fans of clever artwork will find much to peruse on each page as they search for the missing homework in the midst of the melee, and crafty teachers may even turn the tables and turn the premise of this book into a writing prompt, such as "I didn't clean my room because..." or "There were raw eggs in my lunch box because... "

School Library Journal says, "This well-crafted book should find an appreciative audience."

And for extra credit, pair this one with Lisa Broadie Cook's Peanut Butter and Homework Sandwiches. (See review here).

Facing Up to It: Mustache! by Mac Barnett

Duncan was a terrible king, but he was terribly handsome.

He spent every Royal Day admiring his Royal Reflection, and not doing much else.

Which is why his kingdom was such a Royal Mess. King Duncan didn't repair the roads. He built billboards instead.

King Duncan's kingdom is falling apart. There are potholes in the road big enough to swallow a knight in armor whole--including his charger. Swing sets are collapsing in the parks, and the sheep are forced to scale trees and graze on the thatched roofs of the town. But the more his disgruntled subjects grumble, the more billboards and monuments Duncan constructs, all featuring himself in various heroic poses.

And when his restive and progressively more disloyal subjects protest (waving signs which proclaim BETTER LADDERS FOR POTHOLES), King Duncan's remedy is to hang a mega-banner from the castle walls with his vainglorious visage and the motto I'M GREAT! Duncan may be a legend in his own mind, but to his subjects he's just another pretty political face.

REMEMBER: YOUR KING IS A DREAMBOAT!
DUNCAN, TAMING THE MIGHTY WALRUS

The next morning, the King discovers that his giant mug on the banner has something new--a huge handlebar mustachio. The King declares that the errant artist must be jailed at once and orders multiple copies of his banner to be plastered to every possible vertical surface in the kingdom.

Done and done. Smug and smiling images of a mustache-less Duncan leer down from everywhere at his less-than-loyal proletariat.

But the next morning, King Duncan arises to find that his image has apparently been occupied by his people. A different mustache has sprouted on every single poster. Even his own Royal Advisor has been busy all night adding his adornment to King Duncan's upper lip. Duncan orders the mustache malefactors jailed, but still the graffiti grows daily. Finally, Duncan decides to try a tricky tactic. Plastering a benevolent smile on his face (the only likeness of himself in the kingdom without a mustache), the King assembles the populace and demands that the perpetrator reveal his identity.

"My gentle subjects," he said, "you have been playing a joke on me. And I have found the joke hilarious. So if the person who has been drawing mustaches on my picture would just raise his or her hand, we can all laugh and there will be no punishment."

Every hand in the crowd goes up. Aghast, King Duncan orders them all arrested. Alas, the kingdom's punitive prison facilities fall far short of the demand, so the King orders more and more commodious new jails constructed, until Duncan's kingdom is one huge walled prison. But instead of being miserable, Duncan's subjects seem to be enjoying the pristine new prisons. The roads are freshly paved--with no potholes. Their surroundings are freshly painted and problem-free. The formerly restive rebels are really rockin' and rollin' inside their new digs. And King Duncan finds himself all alone with his own reflection in the mirror in his palace outside the prison walls, with no one to admire his handsome and non-hirsute face. It's time to FACE up to reality and give the people what they want.

He got off his Royal Throne.
He stood in front of the Royal Mirror.

He reached for his Royal Paintbrush....

Mac Barnett's Mustache! (Hyperion, 2011) is a timely tonsorial tale which will tickle the fancy of young readers. A sort of variation on The Emperor's New Clothes theme, Barnett is aided in poking fun at the vanities of short-sighted leaders by Kevin Cornell's sly visual humor and lively illustrations. A fantastical soup-strainer story which will dust the reader's cookies!

Groaner Alert! Chicken Butt's Back! by Erica S. Perl and Henry Cole

"HEY! DO YOU KNOW WHAT?"

"IN FACT, I DO. AND WHERE AND WHY AND HOW AND WHO."

"BUT MOM! I'LL MAKE THIS CRYSTAL CLEAR...."

"NO MORE "CHICKEN BUTT," MY DEAR."

That's what she thinks! Mom is no match for that inveterate punster she calls her son. In an exuberant sequel to their riotously irreverent (some say "cheeky") first book Chicken Butt! (Abrams), even an expedition to the grocery store gives our young wordplayer opportunity for more of his call-and response humor. Over and over Mom falls into his verbal trap as she absentmindedly tries to finish her shopping.

"WHICH BUTT?"

"WITCH BUTT!!!!"

With Henry Cole's familiar goofy, bug-eyed chickens and other comic critters appearing in sequence, it's a word-playground for Erica Perl's little pun-lover with his happy homophones and homonyms at the ready in her latest giggle-and-word-fest, Chicken Butt's Back! (Abrams, 2011)

Butt of the Joke: Chicken Butt! by Erica Perl

"You know what?

"What?"

"CHICKEN BUTT!"

"You know why?"

"Why?"

"CHICKEN THIGH!"

"You know how?

"How?"

CHICKEN EYEBROW!"

Yeah, yeah, yeah! It's the silliest, the stupidest, the downright BOTTOM for schoolboy schoolyard jokes, all dressed up with those irresistibly goofy, googly-eyed chickens that illustrator Henry Cole conjures up, and it's just plain fun for the reader, slapstick verbal humor which will knock kids back on their keisters abounds in such lines as

"You know where?"

"Where?" (from the disgusted but still determinedly patient dad)

"CHICKEN UNDERWEAR!"

Erica Perl's Chicken Butt! (Abrams, 2009) even gives the youthful jokester the last line, the sorta surprising switch to "MONKEY BUTT!" in her salute to wordplay (or we might say fowl play,) one of what was a humongous harvest of heiny humor in 2009. Along with Black's cheery Chicken Cheeks (see my earlier review here) and Halliday's happyfest, Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo (reviewed here), 2009 was a banner year for bottoms, so we might as well let Erica Perl's latest have its, um, seat at this table. As one reviewer says, "Warning: Kids will want to read this one over and over and over again! An unhinged piece of slap-happy rhyming…rocket-propelled artwork… the romp is a powerful piece of cacophony, more frenetic by the moment."

Eggshell-ent! Easter Crack-Ups: Knock-Knock Jokes Funny-Side Up by Katy Hall and Lisa Eisenberg

KNOCK KNOCK!

WHO'S THERE?

BUNNY!

BUNNY WHO?

BUNNY-TH THIS ROCK I FOUND AN EGG!

Combine bunnies, colored eggs, happy kids, and clever lift-the-flap tricks and knock-knock puns to dye for and what do you get? Well, if it's Easter time, you'll want to get Katy Hall's and Lisa Eisenberg's Easter Crack-Ups: Knock-Knock Jokes Funny-Side Up (Lift-the-Flap Knock-Knock Book), a springtime stalwart in the over-lightly genre of knock-knock joke books. Billed as knock-knocks funny-side-up, this standby combines eggs-traordinary pun-ditry with clever flappery to keep early elementary readers, as advertised, cracking up and turning those pages.

KNOCK KNOCK!

WHO'S THERE?

SHERWOOD!

SHERWOOD WHO?

SHERWOOD LIKE TO BE IN THE EASTER PARADE!

Those wizards of wordsmithery, Hall and Eisenberg, roll out practically every groaner in the basket in more than a baker's dozen of punny-side up fun as a group of kids come together for an Easter picnic and egg hunt ("Easter a picnic in this park today?") on the village green. For early elementary readers just beginning to appreciate the fl-egg-sibility of their native tongue, this sturdy and in-eggs-pensive little book is just what the Easter Bunny ordered:

KNOCK KNOCK!

WHO'S THERE?

ABBY!

ABBY WHO?

ABBY EASTER!

For more of Hall's and Eisenberg's holiday pun-ditry, take a look here.

Prehistoric Pets: Buying, Training, and Caring for your Dinosaur by Laura Joy Rennart

THERE IS A DINOSAUR FOR YOU!

THERE'S A DINOSAUR FOR EVERY KID AND A KID FOR EVERY DINOSAUR.

This guide will help you find the right one for you.

With a warning that "some dinosaurs need a little more housebreaking than others," Laura Rennart's and Marc Brown's new tongue-in-cheek guide to caring for pet dinosaurs, Buying, Training, and Caring for Your Dinosaur, (Knopf, 2009) is off and running.

Need a watch-dino? Try Tricerotops or Tyranosaurus Rex! ("Post a BEWARE OF DINOSAUR warning; the mail carrier will appreciate this!") Your T. Rex is an unparalleled watch-dino, but a sturdy leash and obedience lessons are a must for this one.

Now Old three-horn-face is also great as a ring-toss target for birthday parties, and a Diplodiclus also has party possibilities. With one of those you have your own roller coaster!

Training? Well, that takes a little forethought. Before undertaking the sit command, be sure to check underneath your dino.

Roll Over? Don't even go there!

Hygiene? When your dino needs a bath, the carwash is best! Be forewarned, however, that an Ankylosaurus is difficult to groom. Exercise? Hit the water! Dinos make excellent floatation devices, and some have awesome waterslide possibilities.

Buying, Training, and Caring for Your Dinosaur has some, er, fantastic advice for the would-be pet owner, but there's one bit of counsel I'd like to question:

Potential Health Problem: Extinction (but not for millions of years)

Uh, guys! Read your First Book of Paleontology lately?