Always Listen to Your Mother

Kindergarten-Grade 2 Ernest, the milquetoast protagonist of this quirky tale, is a perfectly obedient son. He cleans, follows the rules, and never has fun until new neighbors move in next door. Curiously reminiscent of the Munsters, Vlapid and his mother have a different idea of the work it takes to make a house a home. Zany antics like swinging from the chandelier in a red cape made from the drapes ensue, cementing the boys' friendship. Stone's mixed-media illustrations are slightly creepy, especially the characters' faces. However, children will love the details and Vlapid and Ernest's wild antics, which are depicted through a combination of well-placed text and jaunty lines. The juxtaposition of orderly equals boring and chaos equals amusement might irk some adults, but children will delight in a house in which there are no rules. Pair this joyful read-aloud with David Shannon's No, David! (Scholastic, 1998) for a laughter-filled, visual feast of children behaving badly. Jasmine L. Precopio, Fox Chapel Area School District, Pittsburgh, PA
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“Errrrrrrrrrrrrnest?” comes the cry from the creepy house on the hill. “Yes, mother?” comes the reply. It's a setup straight out of Psycho, and though things don't go the way of stabbings and showers, Heide and Pierce's tale is full of foreboding. Ernest is a little boy who, as drawn by Stone, resembles a middle-aged man squashed down to midget proportions. He is odd in his behavior, too: he scrubs and cleans and does whatever his mother says: “Ernest never: spilled, whined, dawdled, talked back, got his own way . . . or had a good time.” Then he bikes over to meet the new neighbors (whose house looks even more like the Psycho house), and The Addams Family look-alikes within ask Ernest for help fixing up their place, too—though their perception of a perfect house is a tad different than what Ernest is used to. The story stops right when it seems to be starting, but that doesn't take away from the creepily formal text and the positively Gaiman-esque dementia of Stone's art. Grades K-2. --Daniel Kraus