Tailypo is the story of a little boy, named Kennie Ray, and his dog who fight off a monster and pull off its tail. When they bring the tail to town to trade it for food, the monster comes after the boy and his dog saying, “Tailypo, tailypo, all I want is my tailypo!” The monster traps the dog in a pot and this gives Kennie Ray the courage to stand up to the monster. Kennie Ray says he does not have the monster’s tailypo and the monster runs away. The language in this story is lively and adds to the action of the story. This story follows the traditional pattern of a tall tale in that it contains events that are so outrageous, they could never happen. These outrageous events are presented as being factual and are written as if they have truly happened. ( )

This book has been retold in many different ways and many different versions. This means that this book belongs in the traditional literature category. I did not like this book for a few reasons. I found this story to be confusing and quite unsettling for a children’s book. The illustrations in the book I found to be a bit too much for a picture book for children. The creature that is shown to be tormenting the little boy has small red eyes, fangs, and sharp claws. These illustrations I found to be scary and I think young readers would as well. While reading this story, the all the creature says to the little boy is “Tailypo, Tailypo, all I want is my Tailypo”. Tailypo is supposed to be the name of that specific horrid creature. I didn’t understand the fact as to why that creature only repeated that sentence and nothing else. During the whole story, there was only one Tailypo. That sentence that was repeated was confusing because that creature kept saying that all it wanted was Tailypo but it was the only creature in the story. Every time that creature made a statement, it approached the boy looking to cause him harm. The main idea of this book is to try to be brave when times seem the scariest. ( )

Z didn't like this modernization of one of his fave folk tales. ( )