Mark Pett

I love “The Boy and the Airplane.” The main idea of this wordless picture book is to show the aging of a young boy and how as you get older, you are more generous to those who are younger. First of all, I loved the plot of this story. The book did a good job on having an organized, well-developed pace. The book starts off with a young boy receiving a gift, and from there, the author slowly shows each detail of the boy playing with a red airplane and eventually, getting the red airplane show more stuck on a roof. Though the book has no text, the specific details on each page made it known to me what was occurring. The illustrations of this book are wonderful as well. The illustrator uses soft brown-toned colors to help readers fall into place with the calmness of the story. On the opening panel of the book, there are only three sentences. “A little boy, A lost airplane, An idea takes root...” Just having these three sentences helps grasp what is happening throughout the book, and I enjoyed the simplicity of that. show less

First-person narrator Dougie the Dung Beetle is proud of who he is and what dung beetles do...but he still doesn't want anyone at school to know that he eats poop. But when faced with a choice between humiliating an old friend and fessing up to his own true self, Dougie takes the high road, and it inspires his classmates to reveal their own weirdnesses:

A second-grader praying mantis spoke up. "So? My mom ate my dad."
Everyone looked at each other.
"I have ears in my armpits," said Manuel show more Moth.
"I eat dead people," said Maude Maggot...

Plenty of humor and grossness here as well as the "be yourself" message.

Endpapers resemble a series of school yearbook photos, with the traditional mottled blue background and each insect's name under its picture (Caleb Caterpillar, Cecilia Centipede, etc.). show less

This is a picture book in the literal sense: it uses only pictures to tell its story, like the childhood favorite of many, The Snowman. The colorless illustrations (save the bicycle, which is green), are quietly beautiful, clean, and easy to follow. The story also, and most notably, has a pleasant old-time feel: The girl covets a simple bicycle; she counts money from a piggy bank; she sets up a lemonade stand and does chores for neighbors; she resembles a young Olive Oyl—all of this show more portrayed in a sepia color scheme.

Author Mark Pett communicates excellent morals with this story, but such morals have been taught countless times before, so in that sense The Girl and The Bicycle is unoriginal; however, the book is surprisingly moving and is memorable for many reasons, not least of which is because it packs such a punch without a single word. show less

Dougie the dung beetle eats poop. As the only dung beetle at school, he hides his lunch under a pebble at school so no one knows what he eats, and so he won't be an outcast. He used to be best friends with Herman the housefly who also enjoys poop. When Ronald the roly poly snaps into a ball after being startled by a dropped stack of books, Dougie steers him to a stop with his legs. Impressed, the popular bugs invite him to sit with them at lunch. Of course, Dougie goes hungry because he show more won't eat his lunch in front of them. Later he seeks out his hidden lunch but the popular bugs demand to see what's in the bag and then dare Dougie to dump it on Herman. Dougie realizes he can't do that to Herman and admits it's his lunch and that he loves poop. Then other bugs reveal their differences ("I drink blood," "I ate your sister," "I'm a boy and a girl"). Even the popular bugs have weird quirks. From that day on, Dougie proudly eats his poop lunch with his friends. show less