Postmodern Picture Books #1

Jon Scieska and Lane Smith never fail to deliver an awesome book. This book is fractured fairy tales, and things happen that aren't supposed to happen. Something does fall on Chicken Little's head, just not the sky. The Princess and the Pea is reimagined to a bowling ball, the ugly duckling stays ugly, and the gingerbread man is a stinky cheese man that no one wants to eat because he's stinky. Kids love this book as a read aloud, they laugh and laugh at the silly stories. Students will love the illustrations in this book, Lane Smith does a lovely job with his illustrations of each character.

This book is a crazy compilation of fairy tales with a twist. It is a true work of art. A book such as this can teach aspiring writers so many new techniques and skills. It is also eye opening for readers in need of a little inspiration! ( )

I'm a huge fan of Jon Scieszka's alternative fairytale retellings, but this collection fell a bit flat. The stories are still filled with his signature humour and the artwork is expectedly alt, but the stories themselves aren't particularly strong. Scieszka tackles a multitude of well known stories in this collection, but I think it is this lack of focus that weakens the book overall. Usually he is able to get into the character who the story is based around, but with the shorter space given to each story here he is instead relying on the brevity of the stories and pithy punchlines to sell the story. The only story that I feel like works really well is that of Jack and the giant from the beanstalk because he gives enough space to the story for us to see the two charqacters clearly and to engage in some interesting artistic tenchiques as well. Even though the book would have been much shorter, I think it would have been stronger if we had just been given a clever retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk! ( )

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