What's Up With You, Taquandra Fu?/With Teacher's Guide

Taquandra Fu, the weirdest girl in class, decides to try being normal for a change

Kindergarten-Grade 2?Taquandra Fu, the weirdest girl in class, wears boots covered with raisins and hats made of stained glass. For lunch she consumes olives, hay, and orange juice. She says and does things backwards and delights in hanging out at the aquarium with the squid. Hurt when she is not picked for the kickball team or taken seriously when she runs for class office, she decides to be more normal, but is not comfortable with her new personality and reverts back to her unique self. This zany story in rhyme by the author of the popular Contrary Kid (Zino, 1995) has some underlying truths, examining as it does conformity versus nonconformity, identity, and self-esteem. Busy cartoon illustrations fill the cluttered pages but are in keeping with the offbeat chaos of the story and should appeal to a child's sense of the absurd.?Sally R. Dow, Ossining Public Library, NY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The glow-in-the-dark cover is the best feature of this uneven picture book, in which the creators of The Contrary Kid introduces Taquandra Fu, "the weirdest girl in the class" and proud of it. Cibula's rhyming text ("My boots are made of raisins and my hats are all stained glass,/ And when it rains I wear an overcoat of shiny brass") strains to be zany, and the frenetic attempts at quirkiness quickly grow tiresome. When an identity crisis finds the oddball "on a mission to be normal," a strange mix of nonsensical observations (e.g. "I ran for class vice-president and Jen said, 'That's a scream!'/ I don't know what she meant, but it sure hurt my self-esteem") and pop psychology leads her down the inevitable path to self-realization ("What good is being popular if I cannot be me?"). With their crisp black-and-white borders, Strassburg's bright, cartoon-like illustrations have a certain flair, but even their jaunty style can't take the self-conscious edge off this rambling rhyme. Ages 4-up. (Feb.) where readers can write to Taquandra Fu.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.