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Rating: 
Summary: We loved it.
Review: As students we appreciate what Smitty endured in his valiant effort to get to school on time. The illustrations have a brilliant and wacky quality with strange perspective that is a surprise and a delight. Each page is a delightful adventure. It is a great read aloud book and our librarian read it to us. We won't tell the ending.
Students at Harbor Day School
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining excuses
Review: This is an amusing tale of one boy's heroic efforts to get to school on time. Told in easy-to-read rhymes that impart a lyric rhythm to this story, we follow Scotty as he outwits aliens, dinosaurs, whales, and snowmen who would stand in the way of his arrival at school. The illustrations are rendered with a combination of airbrushing, painting and drawing, and the stellar results of this method and Michael Austin's creative use of perspectives makes the artwork the highlight of this book. Younger children will be drawn in by the bright colors, funny situations, and the sound of the rhymes, and school-aged children may recognize (or admire!) some of the scenarios. They will probably also suspect they know what's going on, until the last couple of pages, when there is a surprise twist.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining excuses
Review: This is an amusing tale of one boy's heroic efforts to get to school on time. Told in easy-to-read rhymes that impart a lyric rhythm to this story, we follow Scotty as he outwits aliens, dinosaurs, whales, and snowmen who would stand in the way of his arrival at school. The illustrations are rendered with a combination of airbrushing, painting and drawing, and the stellar results of this method and Michael Austin's creative use of perspectives makes the artwork the highlight of this book. Younger children will be drawn in by the bright colors, funny situations, and the sound of the rhymes, and school-aged children may recognize (or admire!) some of the scenarios. They will probably also suspect they know what's going on, until the last couple of pages, when there is a surprise twist.
Rating:
Summary: Master Illustrator
Review: While the rhyming text may be a bit forced at times, the book's illustrations are breathtakingly vivid and strange. Austin clearly has talent to burn and an original vision. I look foward to seeing more of his art. He reminds me in some ways of another great illustrator of our time, Chris Van Allsburg--both have a quirky, somewhat unsettling way of presenting things so that we can see them in new ways.
Rating:
Summary: Master Illustrator
Review: While the rhyming text may be a bit forced at times, the book's illustrations are breathtakingly vivid and strange. Austin clearly has talent to burn and an original vision. I look foward to seeing more of his art. He reminds me in some ways of another great illustrator of our time, Chris Van Allsburg--both have a quirky, somewhat unsettling way of presenting things so that we can see them in new ways.
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