Serge Bloch

Butterflies in My Stomach (and Other School Hazards)
By Serge Bloch, Illustrations by Judith Inglese
2010, Sterling Publishing
Review by Debra L Scott, 12/14/2011

Do you ever think about how a child might interpret your words? Butterflies in My Stomach is a delightful look at idiomatic expressions, and how a child might take them literally. It is the first day of school, and the boy has actual butterflies inside his stomach, pictures going to school inside a pickle with wheels (“we’d be in a show more real pickle if we missed the bus”). Then, of course, it rains ‘cats and dogs’ and he opens ‘a can of worms’. The whole story is fun to read, with the pen and ink illustrations showing the literal meaning of the phrase.

What a great way to help a kid laugh away the jitters of the first day of school! Also a good way to help a child look at the way words can mean something very different than the usual meanings, depending on how they are used, and for children who speak a different language at home, and may not be familiar with common idioms. Good scholastically as an early introduction to creative language, idioms and linguistics. show less

I absolutely adore the clever illustrations in this book, in which line drawings are combined with a photographed object to illustrate a simile or metaphor or saying, such as "butterflies in my stomach". However, I think that the concept of all these sayings might be beyond kindergarteners, and since the book is about a boy's first day of school, that might be a bit of a conflict in trying to pick the right age group for this book. For instance, the librarian tells the boy that if he loses show more his library books, he'd be "up a creek without a paddle". The picture shows a boy in a boat on some water, but I'm not sure a five-year-old would really understand, even from that picture, what "up a creek without a paddle" means.

Otherwise, A for effort -- I mean it when I say I love these illustrations. I will seek out more work by this author. show less

I was amazed at the number of idioms that were crammed into this story, one on almost every page.
The trope of confusing figures of speech is not new, as it forms the plot line for all of the Amelia Bedelia stories, and The King Who Rained.
However, confining the selection of idioms to a single topic (wide-ranging as that turned out to be), is a notable feat, and the illustrations are very amusing.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I think it is a great book to have students read on their first day of school. The use of idioms brings a lot of comedy, and the realistic illustrations and cartoon illustrations mixed in together were interesting as well.