April Fool! (Easy-to-Read, Puffin) - Softcover

Ziefert, Harriet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141305827 ISBN 13: 9780141305820

Publisher: Puffin, 2000

Synopsis

Will is a regular jokester on April Fool's day as he tricks his friends into believing some of the craziest and most ridiculous things. Simultaneous.

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 1-2-This beginning reader is a big disappointment. Will, a young skateboarder, tells a crowd of increasingly skeptical friends a meaningless and contrived story of an elephant's antics. At times, this tale in verse seems to have been written more to complete a rhyme than to make sense or move the story along: "He raced with a bus/that was going to town./He put back a flagpole/that had fallen down." The illustrations of the anthropomorphized elephant are also inconsistent. In most, his hind legs are drawn to scale, but in others they are much longer. While the use of double-page spreads to convey the sheer mass of the animal is effective, and the cartoons and the skateboarding narrator have some appeal, the nonsensical text won't fool anyone.
Diane Janoff, Queens Library, CLASP Office, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

On the way to school one morning, Will regales his friends with a tall tale about an adventurous, acrobatic elephant he once saw along the same route. As the absurd story goes on, the children begin to suspect that something's up and finally join in the chant, "Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!" Will nonchalantly replies, "April Fool!" Jaunty ink drawings tinted with bright washes give this Viking Easy-to-Read title a cheerful look as they illustrate both the story and the story-within-the-story. Upbeat fare for beginning readers and a possible read-aloud choice for younger children on April Fool's Day. Carolyn Phelan

Edition details

• Publisher: Puffin
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0141305827
• ISBN 13: 9780141305820
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Demarest Chris L.