This latest title includes a silly play on words and a running joke about a prehistorically picky eater. Told in simple comic panels, with colored speech bubbles, the story is at an intermediate reading level.
A brief cartoon precedes the story, explaining how to pronounce trilobite, "TRY-luh-bite" although it does not explain that they are prehistoric, extinct arthropods. Sort of like a roly-poly, which is what the purple character resembles. Bug, an orange oval with blue squiggly stripes, little horns, and wings, is just a bug. Trilobite glares morosely at the enthusiastic Bug, who presents a cupcake-like container overflowing with something green, proclaiming "I have a snack!" After a lot of build-up, Bug invites Trilobite to taste their snack, but Trilobite only eats noodles, only likes noodles, and has never tried anything else and never will. Well, maybe. But it will take a lot of convincing from Bug and a doubly surprising ending to defeat this purple picky eater!
As you may have picked up, there are several jokes that will most likely only be caught by adults, but there is plenty for kids to laugh at in this contemporary, funny take on the Green Eggs and Ham trope. There are no names or pronouns given for the characters in the story, but the publisher's description, of course, defaults to male pronouns. Trilobite's elegantly curved antennae and the goofy facial expressions of both creatures add to the quirky story and will make for a fun project for kids to write and draw their own Trilobite adventures!
Verdict: Another funny intermediate reader from Jonathan Fenske, and a strong addition to this reading level of easy readers. Both reluctant and voracious readers will be easy to try a bite of this new book! Recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment