Giant Steps

When a group of bored giants decides to pass the time with a game, their version of "giant steps" takes them all around the world, through canyons and up mountains, as they use the entire planet as their own personal playground.

Kindergarten-Grade 4--In this entertaining read-aloud, five "loud-sighin'," "eye-rollin'," "yawny-bored giants" are sitting on a mountaintop wondering what to do. The cure for their doldrums is a game of "giant steps," in which the eternally unlucky fifth behemoth stays behind to count while the other four go pounding north, south, east, and west across the surface of the earth. When he bellows "FREEZE!" his voice reverberates across the globe, and he grabs a big, yellow ball (the sun) to lob at the closest competitor. He misses, and his four friends come running back to tease him and begin the game anew. It's just as well that the fifth giant is so ill fated because, as readers learn on the final page, he's the only one who knows how to count. Chock-full of alliterative phrases and colorful verbs that are great fun to read aloud, Loredo's folksy text has the feel of a traditional tale. Root's watercolor-and-gouache paintings complement the story's humor and liveliness. The artist dresses the characters in a hodgepodge of animal skins, plated armor, sports jerseys, and knee socks, making them look like a cross between ancient archetypes and dime-store thugs. Their goofy, wide-eyed, gap-toothed countenances will amuse youngsters, as will the comical expressions of zebras, seals, and other critters caught in the tromping giants' paths. It is easy to imagine children begging for repeated readings of this clever tale and then rushing outside to play at being giants themselves.--Eve Ortega, Cypress Library, CA
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PreS-Gr. 2. In the game Mother, May I, players can be commanded to take "giant steps"; this picture book interprets the phrase more literally, imagining an amusement dreamed up by "loud-sighin'," "yawny-bored" giants. The game turns out to be a cross between hide-and-seek and dodgeball, with rules adjusted to the participants' Brobdingnagian proportions. As one giant counts, the others dash away in the four cardinal directions, each arriving at an exotic locale offering a snapshot lesson in world geography. Loredo's twangy, colloquial text is tailor made for reading aloud, though the story is primarily a buildup to a concluding joke. The real stars here are Root's goofy, snaggle-tooth giants. In exuberant watercolor-and-gouache illustrations, they lope through the Grand Canyon as if along a jogging track, sport Converse low-tops and football jerseys along with more traditional caveman garb, and romp with a gleeful abandon that children will recognize from their own playtime games. Jennifer Mattson
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