Clowns on Vacation - Hardcover

Laden, Nina

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802787800 ISBN 13: 9780802787804

Publisher: Walker Childrens, 2002

Synopsis

When clowns go on vacation, the whole world is a circus.

When the circus is over,
After the standing ovation,
What do clowns do
When they go on vacation?

They make us laugh until our sides ache, but these hardworking clowns just need a break. Now that the Big Top is folded and their bags are all packed, the Clownmans are taking a rest from their act. Whether they're climbing a mountain or digging for treasure, they always seem to have a nose for adventure. Wherever they go, whatever they do, they are always clowns through and through.

Nina Laden skillfully and seamlessly combines photomontage with vibrant gouache paintings to create a picture book chock-full of verbal and visual humor that will delight audiences of all ages.

About this title

About the Author

Nina Laden is the author and illustrator of Walker & Company's Bad Dog, which School Library Journal praised as "a book that has a flavor all its own. The illustrations are equally funny, capturing all of the canine antics." Nina lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband and three stepsons.

From Publishers Weekly

This comical yet awkwardly realized volume imagines how four circus clowns, their elephant and their dog pass their downtime, including forays to beach and desert destinations. Each spread poses queries that demand a close look at the images, which are a muddle of intense colors and cutout photos. One page pictures a five-star resort next to a brick tenement with an Always Vacant sign: Along the way, Where do they stay? In a fancy hotel Or a bad one that smells? The answer is neither, as it turns out. Four pairs of floppy shoes rest outside a patched Little Top tent, suggesting that the clowns bring their own accommodations. Laden's (Bad Dog) jokes are in the details. At the shore, a girl clown buries the elephant in the sand while her brother digs for seashells and unearths a cell phone. Their father sips lemonade from a water-cooler while their mother covers her shell-white face with clown tan (they never remove their red noses or makeup). Before returning home, the group finds the treasure of Billy the Kidder, drops by Las Vegas, and gets stuck in traffic when a glue truck tips over. Laden's book is chockablock with tepid sight gags, but her uneven rhymes and the garish colors and clutter of some of the collages are off-putting. Clowns are known for organized chaos, and this book needs better choreography. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker Childrens
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0802787800
• ISBN 13: 9780802787804
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Laden Nina