Remy Charlip (1929–2012)

This amusing picture-book follows the wildly fluctuating fortunes of Ned, a young New York boy who is (fortunately) invited to a surprise party. Unfortunately, the party is far away... but fortunately, a friend loans Ned an airplane. Unfortunately, the motor explodes... but fortunately, Ned makes it to the parachute. And so it goes, back and forth, as Ned makes his adventure-filled way to a party, where there is one final twist in store...

I enjoyed Remy Charlip's Fortunately - my first title show more by this prolific picture-book author/artist - and imagine that young readers will find its deadpan back-and-forth humor even more hilarious than I did. I really liked the way that the illustrations alternated between brightly colored skies, when depicting the "fortunate" scenes, and dull, gray-toned black-and-white vistas, when depicting the "unfortunate" ones. It really added some extra oomph to the story! All in all, a fun little book, sure to appeal to young readers looking for a tale where anything can happen. show less

Child me would have given this five stars. It's a sub-genre all its own, but fans of concrete poetry, nonsense verse, tongue twisters, word play, meta- and interactive fiction will all find something to giggle over, something they want to share out loud with their families.

I am bothered by the lack of acknowledgements. Some verses & jokes are probably Charlip's own, but some surely aren't (for example, Pete and Repete).

Recommended if you can find it at your library before they cull it, but show more I'm not sure it's actually worth buying. show less

A quiet story about a dad and son and how they spend a day together. A little too quiet for my taste--I like more plot in a picture book--but the text was nice and short, and the illustrations are fine. Not my favorite as far as illustrations go, but they're nice enough.

Age:3-5
Source: ECE Pierce College library

Great book that not only goes through the alphabet but teaches words and phrases as you try to decode. The full page images with people doing the signs with additional clues are very dated but they are amusing and illustrated the words well.