The Awful Aardvarks Go to School - Softcover

Lindbergh, Reeve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0670859206 ISBN 13: 9780670859207

Publisher: Viking Juvenile, 1997

Synopsis

Lively illustrations, tongue-twisting text, and rollicking rhymes rip through the alphabet recounting the chaos a group of mischievous aardvarks casts on an unsuspecting class.

About this title

Reviews

Kindergarten-Grade 2. A funny, alliterative romp through the alphabet. Four friendly and frolicking aardvarks arrive at school, where they disturb and distress everyone in the class, blacken the boards, and cause quite a mess. "They Angered the Anteater, Ate All the Ants, And Bullied the Bunny (they pulled down his pants)." As the aardvarks wreak havoc, an equally awful aardvark marks the alphabetical progress in a prominently featured alphabet along the top of each double-page spread. There's one mild narrative epithet in which the aardvarks are justifiably referred to as jerks, but it's all in the name of rhyming. The equally amusing watercolor illustrations are a good match, reflecting perfectly the satisfying actions of the text right down to when the dreadful creatures "Flicked Fleas at our Friend Freddie Frog." A flying success.?Christy Norris, Valley Cottage Library, NY
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

There are plenty of alphabet books around--and not a few really good ones--so it may not be the faults of Lindbergh and Pearson (the team behind There's a Cow in the Road!, 1993) that they make, here, the merest of ripples. A troupe of trouble- making aardvarks stages a smash-and-grab raid at an elementary school attended by animals: ``They Angered the Anteater, Ate All the Ants, And Bullied the Bunny (they pulled down his pants).'' On they go, chasing chickens, flicking fleas, launching the llama's lunchbox, tossing turtles--until finally they are off to the zoo for some additional havoc. As Pearson draws them in congenial watercolors, these aardvarks are more gleeful than rude (and not nearly as mischievous as the carolers in her own We Wish You a Merry Christmas (1983, not reviewed), so the priggish snappings--``Understand if you will, it was Utterly awful, Those Vandals were Vicious, and Very unlawful''--come across as much ado about nothing. (Picture book. 3-7) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Juvenile
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670859206
• ISBN 13: 9780670859207
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Pearson Tracey Campbell
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32