This Is a Ball (Books That Drive Kids CRAZY! Series #2)

by Beck Stanton, Matt Stanton

Overview

For the giggling masses who love Hervé Tullet's Press Here, BJ Novak's The Book With No Pictures, and Bill Cotter's Don't Push the Button comes an interactive new series!

The Books That Drive Kids CRAZY! series offers parents, teachers, and storytellers a hilarious script for fun reading time together. Book 2, This Is a Ball, is a boldly absurd spin-off of concept books, and an audaciously contrarian invitation for readers to practice deadpan delivery: after all, the picture on the cover clearly shows a cube, not a ball. The page that declares a princess is flying a kite at the beach shows an alien holding a balloon in a city...and on and on. What is WRONG with this silly book? Kids will demand to know—and all readers will be howling with laughter all along the way. With strikingly simple text and art, Books That Drive Kids CRAZY! are ideal picks for emergent readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316434379
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	06/13/2017
Series:	Books That Drive Kids CRAZY! Series , #2
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	545,182
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Beck Stanton is the co-creator of the Books That Drive Kids Crazy series and a mother, primary school teacher, and the creative director/owner of mybabymoments.com.au. She has worked extensively with children throughout her teaching career and in roles that include before-and-after school care center director, nanny, and youth and children's worker.

Matt Stanton is the co-creator of the Books That Drive Kids Crazy series and the co-creator of the bestselling Fart Monster picture book series, and has sold more than 100,000 copies of his books abroad. He is also the creative director of HarperCollinsPublishers Australia and New Zealand.

They live by the beach in Sydney with their daughter Bonnie and son Boston.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Books That Drive Kids CRAZY!: This Is a Ball:
"A string of narratorial mistakes...gives children a chance to gleefully correct the adult reading it aloud....Another metafictive storytime crowd-pleaser."
—Kirkus Reviews

"It's a solidly funny concept...kids will have a ball with This Is a Ball."
—BCCB


"Kids will get a kick out of this mixed up tale."—Pregnancy & Newborn


"Funny, clever, deliciously dry...this book encourages kids to think outside the square, and hopefully, somewhere deep in that unlimited subconscious, understand that what we see is all about perception. What a powerful thought."—Kids' Book Review (Australia)

"[The Book with No Pictures, Press Here, and Mix It Up] are international bestsellers and deservedly so, but closer to home we now have a book which is just as delightfully frustrating, clever and nuts."—Children's Book Daily (Australia)


"Kids will fall into fits of giggles as you try to tell them a car is a bike, and they'll only stop laughing long enough to correct you or beg to hear it all again."—Newcastle Herald (Australia)


"Not only does this book encourage object recognition, it's crazy fun for your kids."—Perth's Child (Australia)

Praise for Did You Take the B from My _ook?:
"It's a winning bit of interactive silliness that offers insight into the way small changes can have big results where words are concerned."
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2017-03-29
A string of narratorial mistakes in this Australian import gives children a chance to gleefully correct the adult reading it aloud.The cover is the first clue that something is amiss. A thin arrow points to a cube, which is distinctly not a ball. But the title says otherwise. The narrator begins with a few questions to establish a base knowledge. "Is this a triangle?" (It is.) "Is this a cat?" (It isn't.) "And what's this?" (A banana.) Lauding the listeners' presumably correct responses, the narrator exclaims, "Excellent! Great job. It's good to know we agree." But that dynamic is set up purely to fail. The clean design has a rotating collection of solid background colors on the verso pages, with crisp white pages opposite them. Each white page has an object on it. But the confused narrator just doesn't know what these objects are. A simple, line-drawn elephant has the corresponding declaration: "This is a dog." The Stantons anticipate giggles and a chorus of children shouting their dissent. The narrator counters with: "Nah, it's a dog for sure. I can see its eye. Its legs. It must be a dog." The silly banter continues, gradually combining all of the objects into one (still wildly incorrect) story. Another metafictive storytime crowd-pleaser. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews

Read More