Review of Pssst! by Adam Rex now on my site

I’ve just posted a review of Pssst! by Adam Rex (Harcourt, September 2007, ISBN-13: 9780152058173) on my site. Pssst! is a wonderful picture book–so full of humor and delight, and a wonderful sense of fun. The text and illustrations work together perfectly. It’s a great fantasy. If you like books that make you grin or laugh, or enjoy a good fantasy, check this book out!

From my review:

When a young girl visits the zoo by herself, she’s startled when a gorilla speaks to her, but she quickly adapts and engages in conversation with him. When the gorilla asks her to bring him tires to replace his broken swing, she reluctantly agrees. She visits the next animal, a boar, and it, too, has a request to make. And so it goes with every animal the girl visits, until she has so many requests she doesn’t know how she’ll pay for them all–but a baboon and a tortoise solve that for her. She brings everything back for the delighted animals, and is astonished by what they do with the objects. Rex (Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, Tree-Ring Circus) has written and illustrated a funny, light-hearted fantasy. There’s a fantastic sense of humor throughout the entire book, shown both through the text and the illustrations. Pssst! is a delight to read.

The story is told almost completely in short bits of dialogue, shown in speech bubbles, which moves the story along at a fast clip. There are also lettered signs throughout the zoo; many of these signs are quite funny: “If You’re Close Enough To Read This, Keep Off The Grass,” and “Ice Cold Penguins.” The abundance of funny or silly signs adds to the fun of the book, and encourages readers to pore over the illustrations to read all the signs (or have them all read to them). The dialogue is snappy, colloquial, and easy to relate to. The humor begins immediately, first through an animal nonchalantly addressing the girl and initially asking such mundane questions, and then through the gorilla’s request for not just one, but two tires. The humor keeps coming, including some sloths who ask for bicycle helmets, demonstrating their need for them just as the girl asks why by one falling off its perch to the ground.

You can read my entire review here: http://www.cherylrainfield.com/picture-book-review_Pssst.html

I highly recommend it.