The Secret Shortcut - Softcover

Mark Teague

4.03

362 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0756942365 ISBN 13: 9780756942366

Publisher: Perfection Learning, 1999

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Wendell and Floyd can't seem to get to school on time. Wendell discovers a shortcut so secret that only he knows about it. Soon both boys are lost in a wild jungle full of quicksand, monkeys, and crocodiles! Who would have thought that getting to school could be such an adventure?

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About the Author:

Mark Teague is the award-winning children's book author and illustrator of his own bestselling Dear Mrs. LaRue series, as well as The Sky Is Falling, The Three Little Pigs and the Somewhat Bad Wolf, The Tree House That Jack Built by Bonnie Verburg, and many other humorous picture books. In addition to his prized art for the How Do Dinosaurs . . . series, his illustrated novel, The Doom Machine, received excellent reviews. Mark lives in the Hudson River Valley with his wife and their two daughters.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Teague (who illustrated Audrey Wood's The Flying Dragon Room, p. 75) takes the sidelong view of life in this story about Wendell and Floyd, who are chronically late for school. One day it's space creatures that nearly abduct them, on another it's pirates in the neighborhood, and on another it's a plague of frogs that slows their progress schoolward. Their teacher is not amused. ``Absurd! I'm warning you--be here on time tomorrow--or else! And no more crazy excuses!'' Next day, up at the crack of dawn, determined not to let Ms. Gernsblatt down, Wendell recommends a secret shortcut. That shortcut seems to occupy a parallel dimension, one of rain forests and jungle animals, trailing vines and giant mud puddles. Finally, in the distance, they hear the school bell, and, running toward the noise, make it to their seats in the nick of time. This is an invigorating massage to the imagination, luxuriantly set in Teague's tactile acrylic illustrations, dreamlike items painted from worm's- and bird's-eye angles. Readers who have found themselves tardy and lacking suitable excuses will prize the brio of Wendell and Floyd. (Picture book. 5+) -- Copyright �1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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