Score One for the Sloths - Hardcover

Lester, Helen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618108572 ISBN 13: 9780618108572

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001

Synopsis

At the Sleepy Valley Sloth School, new classmate Sparky is a real pest as she moves about more than anyone else, but when the school is in jeopardy of closing due to poor grades, Sparky's entire class looks to her for help in saving their institution.

About this title

About the Author

Helen Lester and Lynn Munsinger have collaborated on many funny and popular books for children, including the stories starring Tacky the Penguin and Wodney Wat, as well as the new Laugh-Along series. Helen Lester is a full-time writer who makes her home in New York. Lynn Munsinger has lived in Vermont and Connecticut, devoting her time to freelance illustration.

http://www.helenlester.com/

Reviews

These propitiously paired collaborators (Hooway for Wodney Wat; Tacky the Penguin) again turn out a comic caper with a subtly delivered moral. Words and pictures set the scene with laugh-out-loud humor as readers meet the pajama-clad, somnambulistic students at Sleepy Valley Sloth School, which is perched on the branches of a tree. "Once in a while the teacher would remember his job and wake up with a lesson" in such demanding subjects as yawning, snoring and rolling over but most of the time "the class just slept." Instead of lunch hour there are "lunch three hours," followed by naptime, study hall (when the sloths fall asleep in a hammock or on the floor, their books covering their faces) and recess (which finds the classmates draped over a swing set, dozing). The dismissal bell rings at 3:00, yet it takes them until dusk to exit (the custodian finally sweeps them out with a broom). Enter Sparky, whose energy and spunk her new classmates find anything but contagious. However, when an inspector comes from the S.O.S. (Society for Organizing Sameness) in the Mammal District and threatens to close down the school, the sloths follow Sparky's cues to successfully perform the required tasks in such a way that they save their school without betraying their true nature. Score another one for Lester and Munsinger. Readers will hope the sloths return for a rematch. Ages 4-8.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Ages 4-8. Score one against rigid school standards with this farce that turns everything upside down, including both rote learning and creativity. Lester's laid-back text is packed with silly puns, and Munsinger's hilariously detailed line-and-watercolor pictures express the delicious relaxation of Sleepy Valley Sloth School, where everyone, teachers and kids, literally hangs around. When a new sloth, Sparky, comes to school, full of vim and vigor, the others shove her away, until a real boar arrives from the Society for Organizing Sameness and declares that the school has such low ratings it will be closed. Then Sparky springs into action, leading her classmates in wild pretenses, physical and verbal, that trick the official into leaving them all, including Sparky, in peace for a very long nap. It's adults who will appreciate the ridicule of school bureaucrats and their standards. Kids will love the wordplay ("What's two plus two?" "For . . . get it.") and the pictures of the hairy snoring sloths who each do nothing their own way. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0618108572
• ISBN 13: 9780618108572
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Munsinger Lynn
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32