Toy Dance Party (Toys Go Out) - Hardcover

Jenkins, Emily

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375839356 ISBN 13: 9780375839351

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade, 2008

Synopsis

“A bit like the great movie Toy Story and a bit like the wonderful Kate DiCamillo book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. This is a great family book.” —The Washington Post on Toys Go Out, the companion to Toy Dance Party
 
Here is the second book in the highly acclaimed Toys trilogy, which includes the companion books Toys Go Out and Toys Come Home and chronicles the unforgettable adventures of three brave and loving toys. 

Lumphy, Stingray, and Plastic are back! And this time the three extraordinary friends find that their little girl has left for winter vacation and taken a box of dominoes, a stegosaurus puzzle, and two Barbie dolls—but not them. Could she have forgotten them?

As the girl starts to grow up, the three best friends must join together to brave a blizzard, save the toy mice from the vacuum, and make sure that they’ll always have the little girl’s love. (And they still have time to throw an all-out dance party with the washing machine!)

"Poignant and compelling, this sequel sparkles." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred

About this title

About the Author

Emily Jenkins has written many highly acclaimed books for children, including the popular award-winning chapter books Toys Go Out, Toy Dance Party, and Toys Come Home, as well as a picture book that features the same beloved characters, Toys Meet Snow, which was named a New York Times Notable Book and a Wall Street Journal Best Children’s Book of the Year. She is also the author of A Fine Dessert, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year; Water in the Park, a Booklist Editors’ Choice and a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book; and Lemonade in Winter, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Visit her at emilyjenkins.com.

Paul O. Zelinsky is the illustrator of Dust Devil, a New York Times Notable Book and an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award winner. He received the Caldecott Medal for his retelling of the classic fairy tale Rapunzel, as well as three Caldecott Honors, for Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, and Swamp Angel. His illustrations for Toy Dance Party were called “superlative” in a starred review by Kirkus Reviews. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Learn more at paulozelinsky.com.

Reviews

Grade 1–3—Jenkins continues the adventures of Lumphy, Stingray, and Plastic, which began in Toys Go Out (Random, 2006). This charming fantasy about friendship explores their feelings and fears. The Girl who owns them is growing up and they are worried that she is leaving them behind. Telling the story from the point of view of the toys helps children to view these concerns in a nonthreatening light. In six new escapades, the toys learn to stick together and help solve their predicaments. Each new adventure builds anticipation and apprehension as the toys struggle for a satisfactory conclusion. Humor-laced language creates visual images as well as unusual sounds (e.g., "rumpa, lumpa"). Zelinsky's cleverly detailed black-and-white illustrations are amusing and add to the overall pleasure in the book. Beginning chapter-book readers will enjoy the pace of each episode. Toy Dance Party also makes a great read-aloud.—Margaret R. Tassia, Millersville University, PA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Lumphy, StingRay, and Plastic, the toys whose secret lives were introduced in Toys Go Out (2006), are troubled. Their girl, Honey, has developed more grown-up interests; she is no longer very observant and spends less special time with them. In six interconnected adventures, the toys survive being left alone; make friends with Spark, a garbage-eating shark; rescue Bonkers the mouse from the vacuum cleaner; go on a sleepover; and join Washer and Dryer in the basement for lively parties. Finally, with purposeful naughtiness, they solve the problem of Honey’s new interest in the silent Barbies. These toys have distinct, well-developed characters and behave as children do, sometimes squabbling with each other but also taking pride in their accomplishments and ability to cooperate. StingRay even develops empathy. Dialogue and song help to move the narrative along. Each chapter will include a black-and-white illustration (unavailable in galley). Whether or not they are familiar with the toys’ first round of adventures, chapter-book readers will welcome these gently humorous tales, just right for hearing aloud or reading alone. Grades 1-3. --Kathleen Isaacs

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Lumphy, the stuffed buffalo, did not go with the Girl on winter vacation.   StingRay did not go, either. She thought she would. The Girl even told her she would, because she and StingRay sleep together, every single night, on the high bed with the fluffy pillows. But in the end, when the suitcases were packed and the car loaded,the Girl and her parents drove away--and StingRay was left behind.   Plastic, being only a ball, had not expected to go on the trip. No one plays with balls in snowy weather. She is here with StingRay and Lumphy in the empty house, finding it strange to have days go by without the good-natured ruckus of the people who livethere. No alarm clocks, no morning bustle, no baths, no cooking smells. No laughter, no arguments, no stories read aloud.   The house is cold.   For several days--they are not sure how many--Lumphy, StingRay, and Plastic play checkers and Hungry Hungry Hippos with the toy mice and the one-eared sheep. They chat with the rocking horse in the corner and with TukTuk, the old yellow towel in the hallwaybathroom. They watch television. But the hours go by much more slowly than usual. There is always the feeling of someone missing. The Girl they love.   "When is she coming back, again?" Plastic wonders one afternoon. She and Lumphy are on the windowsill, downstairs in the living room. Lumphy is watching the snow falling outside, and Plastic has been reading a book about cheese--kinds of cheese, whereit comes from, and how it's made. She is flipping the pages herself with a rolling technique she's invented.   "The Saturday before school starts again, is what they said," Lumphy answers. He feels sick to his stomach when he thinks about how the Girl isn't here.   "What Saturday is that?" Plastic asks.   "I don't know. A week is how long they'll be gone."   "But how long is a week?" Plastic persists.   "StingRay says five days."   "What day is it now?" wonders Plastic. "Is it Tuesday? I think it's maybe Tuesday." She rocks anxiously from side to side.   "Urmph," mumbles Lumphy. He is counting in his head.   "What are the days besides Tuesday, anyhow?" continues Plastic. "Does it go Onesday, Tuesday, Threesday, Foursday?"   "I think they have already been gone more than five days," announces Lumphy.   "You mean we already had Tuesday?"   "I mean we already had Saturday," says Lumphy. "I mean, the week is up."   Fwap! Gobble-a gobble-a.   Fwap! Gobble-a gobble-a.   They are interrupted.   Fwap! Gobble-a gobble-a.   StingRay is falling down the stairs. Flipper over plush flipper, bouncing first off the wall, then off the posts beneath the banister.   Fwap! Gobble-a gobble-a.   Fwap! Gobble-a gobble-a. And then eventually: Bonk!   She lands at the bottom.   Lumphy climbs gingerly off the windowsill while Plastic bounces over to StingRay. "Are you okay?"   StingRay is lying on her back, and her head hurts where she banged it on a post, but she quickly turns over on her tummy and brushes her eye with her left flipper. "What do you mean?"   "You fell down the stairs."   "I don't know what you're talking about. I come down that way all the time on purpose." StingRay changes the subject. "What have you been doing?"   "I was reading!" Plastic tells her. "Did you know cheese is made in caves? Because it is! You put milk in a cave and out comes cheese!"   "Of course I knew that," says StingRay, although she didn't. "Listen. Do you know where the playing cards are? I can't find them anywhere and I want to play Fish."   Plastic and Lumphy agree to help look for the cards. They search the downstairs, checking bookshelves and the drawers of the coffee table--but the cards are not there. They go upstairs: Lumphy climbing, StingRay lurching up each step with a strong pushof her tail, and Plastic bouncing easily, five stairs at a time.   They look through the Girl's bedroom again. Search under the high bed. Look behind the box that holds the board games.   Then they realize: the Girl has packed the cards. She has taken them with her on vacation, where she has not taken Lumphy, or Plastic, or StingRay.   "What else has she packed?" cries StingRay, frantic. She flops herself across the bedroom carpet. "Did she pack that book about the mouse in the dungeon?"   Plastic takes a high bounce to look on the bedside table. "It's not here."   "Now we'll never find out what happens!" moans StingRay. "What else did she pack?"   Their survey reveals that the Girl has packed not only the book about the mouse in the dungeon and the deck of cards but a box of dominoes, a carton of LEGOs, a paint box and a pad of art paper, a jigsaw puzzle of a triceratops, two Barbie dolls that don'ttalk and never have, and a vinyl box of Barbie outfits.   "Oh no!" StingRay cries when Plastic and Lumphy present her with the total. "Why did she take all the second-rate toys and leave us?"   "There, there," says Plastic. "She just . . ."   "She just what? She just forgot us, that's what! Forgot us and took those Barbie dolls who don't even say anything at all!"   "Maybe she went to a place that was good for Barbies," says Plastic. "Some kind of special Barbie place, where stingrays would get bored."   "Oh yeah?" StingRay throws herself on the carpet in distress. "And she needs her paint box there?   And her dominoes?   She hardly even likes the dominoes.   She never does puzzles!   She doesn't love me!   She's left me!"   "She's coming back," says Plastic. "She's coming back on Saturday." She doesn't tell StingRay what Lumphy told her--that maybe Saturday is already over.   "By Saturday she'll have forgotten all about us!" cries StingRay. Now she is twisting over and back on the carpet, gasping and sobbing.   And sobbing some more.   And even more sobbing.   This can't go on, thinks Lumphy. He has to do something.

Edition details

• Publisher: Schwartz & Wade
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375839356
• ISBN 13: 9780375839351
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Zelinsky Paul O.
• Number of pages: 176