Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Team Shark? Team Train?

Shark vs. TrainShark vs Train by Chris Barton,  illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld, Little, Brown, 2010

I loved this photo from the Blue Rose Girls wrap-up of ALA.  Team Shark or Team Train? Who is superior?  That is a question that could lead to an inspired library lesson.  If you need some help, Little, Brown has a Shark vs Train website, with posters and activity sheets to download.

Tom Lictenheld's comic illustrations are delivered with broad, over-the-top humor and subtle nudges which will delight the book's audience of kids and kids of a "certain age," as the French say.    A sly and canny wit underpins the project which comes from  Chris Barton's inspired concept of a shark and a train, trying to out-do each other.  The story is a celebration of children and imaginative play.  

If it is not on your library shelf yet,then this is a must have for your school library's first order of the year.  

In fact if you don't have Barton's 2010 Sibert Honor biography, The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer's Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors, illustrated by Tony Persiani, Charlesbridge, 2009, in your library, you best get a copy of it too!


2 comments:

Jenni said...

Words of wisdom that I am absolutely inhaling! Off to add to my book order list! (Thanks!)

Jennifer Morian Frye said...

Love, love, love this book!