Mini Monday #38

Mini Monday: Where my son and I do two “mini” reviews on two children’s books. Each book will get a Thumbs up, Middle Thumb, or Thumbs down rating!

Magritte’s Marvelous Hat by D.B. Johson
Hardcover, 32 pages
Published April 17th 2012 by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children
Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

"Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see." —Rene Magritte

D.B. Johnson writes and illustrates the surreal story of famous surrealist painter Rene Magritte and his very mysterious (and mischievous!) hat. While the art reflects some of Magritte's own work, the text sets readers on a fun and accessible path to learning about the simpler concepts behind Mr. Magritte's work.

This delightful picture book captures the playfulness and the wonderment of surrealist art. Four transparent pages add yet another level of surrealism to the illustrations as pictures can be altered with the turn of a page.

This book was really neat. They had these clear inserts throughout the book that would have one piece of the next picture drawn on it and then when you turned the clear page it would have something from the page before drawn slightly different. This made it look like the picture had changed. For example, on one page would be a closed window then when you flipped the clear page it would have same window drawn but it was open. I hope that makes since. Anyway, that was one really neat part of the book.

They also had a couple parts where he played hide and seek with his magical hat. The hat or man would take shape in whatever the scenery was and it would be fun to trying to find him or the hat. Another example, the hat hid in a wrought iron gate but was hidden in the curves of the gate. I hope I am explaining these well enough.

Overall this was a cool book and my son really liked it.

My Rating:

 

The Bully from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler
Illustrated by Jared Lee
Black Lagoon, #13
Hardcover, 32 pages
Published January 1st 2012 by Spotlight
Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

Hubie has heard there's a new kid in school. His name is Butch Pounder, and he's rumored to be a mean bully! Did Butch really beat up the football team, and eat the teacher's pet at his last school? But of course, Hubie's imagination has run away from him again! All Butch wants is a new friend to show him around school, and Hubie is just who he needs!

 

Well this is pretty nostalgic to me because I remember these books from when I was a kid. The very first one (The Teacher from the Black Lagoon) was released in 1989. I was two years old. These were pretty popular when I was in grade school so I was pretty excited when I saw that my son had picked this book out.

This book is everything the synopsis says it is. Hubie starts to freak out and think this new kid is some horrible bully when in fact he is a very nice kid who would like help going to his next class. Hubie ends up making a new friend out of the ordeal.

I’m excited to try and find the original ones to read to my son.

 

My Rating: