Paul SchmidReseñas

Young children with first day jitters will be delighted (and possibly a bit confused) by Oliver's alligator. When anything or anyone at school makes Oliver nervous, he just has to say, "Munch, munch" and the alligator eats it up. By the end of the book, the alligator has swelled to the size of...the school! And Oliver realizes that there's a lot of fun going on inside that alligator.

I adored Schmid's stubby-legged children and ever-expanding (not at all scary) alligator. The simplicity of the illustrations reminded me of one of my favorite illustrators [a:Peter McCarty|202298|Peter McCarty|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1337692380p2/202298.jpg].

Not the best concept book I have seen (some opposites did not flow/make sense)

What fun. This board book tells a giant story in few words. Playing with your food and eating are sometimes the same things. Bunny tells this story well.

Every now and then I read a children's picture book that just makes squeal and go "awwwww" until the cows come home, and "Hugs from Pearl" by Paul Schmid is one such book. Pearl is a sweet little porcupine who shares, plays nice, and is the best friend to everyone. Her classmates love her. Pearl likes to give her friends hugs but that is hard to do because they get pricked by her quills. Although it hurts them, her friends and classmates accept the hugs without too much fuss because the teacher keeps plenty of band aids on hand. Pearl doesn't like hurting her friends, so she goes on a quest to give painless hugs. I won't give away the ending but her solution is the most adorable childlike solution. With simple and spare pencil drawings and dreamy pastel water colors, Paul Schmid gives life to one cute and huggable porcupine.

A simple, soft opposite book ("bright snowflakes...dark starry nights") in blues and whites. Didn't live up to my expectations for this author.½

Oliver and his Alligator looked like a fun book to read. By the title and cover page I had a few ideas what the story was about. The story was about how Oliver was afraid to go to school so he brought an alligator with him. As soon as Oliver would say "Munch Munch" the alligator would eat the person pr object nearby and then Oliver got lonely so he had the alligator eat him too. This book had a funny plot line to it. I really enjoyed this book and thought it was a fun one to read.

A nice accompaniment to Hugs from Pearl. In this one, Percy loves balloons - but "Happy little porcupines with balloons are soon sad little porcupines." Can Percy find a way to enjoy balloons without his quills popping them? After consulting with his sister Pearl and his mother, he goes back to thinking for himself...and comes up with a "perfectly Percy" idea.

Percy the porcupine loves to play with balloons. Sadly, his balloons don't last very long at all.So he thinks, asks some advice, thinks some more, experiments, and comes up with a clever solution to his problem.

As I have always been a sucker for stories in which characters actually think about their problems, Percy satisfied. Morever, Percy is cuter than poot. Really adorable. The simple but expressive art will appeal to fans of [a:Mo Willems|33274|Mo Willems|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1199684071p2/33274.jpg].

Share it with a child: you know you want an excuse to read this one.

Library copy.

I will be using this book with my struggling readers to work on fluency! Very funny and relatable!

This picture book is illustrated with simple black pastel or crayon drawings and touches of purple and orange watercolor. The pages are mostly white. However, the simple drawings are engaging.

Petunia is a little girl who wants to be free of societal restrictions and bathe naked in mud puddles, eat her food off the floor, and live in a cave like an animal. Her parents are not at all supportive of her desires. In fact they come across as cold and shrill.

Petunia finally has enough of their criticism and decides to mail herself to Africa to live with the animals. Then she hears her mother singing and remembers how much she loves it. She decides to stay.

I like the idea of this book but it ends rather limply. After the shaming given by her parents, I felt they needed to redeem themselves more. Neither showed any love or affection to the child although we are told that she sometimes received tickles at bedtime. We should have seen the parents showing some understanding for Petunia’s wild nature.

Percy is a cute, sweet and prickly porcupine. His favorite thing to do in the world is play with balloons and, as you can guess, this is a HUGE problem when you have your body covered by needles... Percy thought hard trying to find a solution, and when none came to him, he thought even harder. Despite the lack of an idea, he decided to think a little more. And just when he was about to give up, a bright solution finally came to him!

A lovely illustrated story about don't desist when a problem looks unsolvable. Even in the most hopeless of the situations, you can puzzle it out!

Age range: 2 to 6 years old.

Check out more children's book reviews in my Reviews in Chalk Blog!

Cute, simple and fun story.

51 months - the perfect read leading up to the first day of preschool... Plus O thought it was funny.

26 months - cute concept, and we can all relate to wanting something completely impractical. I'm not sure that it's totally clear that she has a stuffed toy skunk as well... Or maybe that's just us. Not so keen on the rant in the middle, probably because I fear the day when O's mouth can keep up with her thought process!!

The illustrations in this book were creative and humorous and it caught my attention right away. I think this would be a great book to integrate into my writing lessons to help students on using more adjectives and expanding on their writing. It was a fun book that I could see many of my students enjoying.

Oliver realizes that bringing an alligator to his first day of school maybe wasn't such a good idea.

Adult Reader Reaction: The simplicity is elegant. The poems are fun, not just for kids. The wordplay is clever and the pen-and-ink illustrations add to the fun. There is a poem (or two or three) for everyone.

Pros: When you read The Wonder Book, plan to giggle, guffaw and share some hugs! Let the kids take the lead and pick the poems / illustrations they want to share.

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Read on August 20, 2014

Ehhhh...not a fan of this one. It's great to see Oliver's imagination at work, but I think I like my stories with just a few more words.

This book has poetry, word play, jokes, and tons of fun stories. Rosenthal wrote this book about things that she has wondered in life. I enjoy how all of the illustrations are in black and white. They really create more of an open mind for readers to fill in the colors from each story.

SUMMARY: Percy the porcupine loves balloons, but he must find a way to keep them from popping.

REVIEW: I gave this book four stars because I believe it is a wonderful book to share with children. To me, the message in this book is the most important thing: never give up doing what you love, even when it seems impossible. Percy loves to play with balloons, but because he is a porcupine, his spikes always pop them. However, "Percy did not want to cry, [and he] did not want to give up." So, he decides to think of a way to play with his favorite balloons. After much deliberation, he finally finds a solution. I believe that children will love reading about a cute little porcupine and be able to relate to the fact that sometimes, the things one most wants in life can be the hardest to get. The text itself may be slightly basic for a more advanced reader, but as I stated before, the message is the most important thing in this story.

Oliver's imagination runs wild when he finds an egg-shaped rock. He has some adventures by himself, but in all the places he travels, there isn't anyone to play with...

Somehow not quite as wonderful as Oliver and His Alligator ("His brave wasn't quite big enough," "a lady who was NOT his mom" etc.)

Oliver is a small boy who decides to take his alligator to school with him. The alligator eats everyone so Oliver decides wants to join the fun so he gets eaten as well.

Oliver is afraid to go to school and brings an alligator along. After the alligator eats everyone, Oliver realizes he is missing out on the fun and decides to get eaten himself. Good story about bravery.

The artwork for this book really caught my eye. Our hero looks so worried as he approaches his first day of school. The illustrations are so simple, yet so expressive! The sketches seem to be made with pencil, but colored accents and some flat cut-out images are added for fun. This would be a great book for parents to read with a kiddo starting preschool or Kindergarten. It might be fun to read to a new pre-K or K class as a welcome, and could even be used to teach a shared vocabulary ("munch, munch, munch") to express fear.