Baloney (Henry P.)

Rating:
Summary: late again
Review: Baloney by Jon scieszcka is an educational and a fun book! It is funny how he makes up things to get out of trouble! He goes to different places like the planet unlucky. It's educational because it uses different languages and translates them. A main event in the story is when he plugs the laser with his pencil. You should read this book; the setting took place in space. To me it's a great book

Rating:
Summary: a dog that won't hunt
Review: I was saddened when I did not like Baloney, Henry P. I have come to expect so much from John Scieszka and Lane Smith. I hoped that a book about an alien student trying to explain what happened to his homework (especially when the story begins with the alien child being abducted by other aliens) would be a great platform to showcase the talents of this team. It sadly has not proved so.

Baloney, Henry P. suffers from both poor illustrations and a lack of humor. The plot line is forced rather than well laid out. These are aberrations in the work of Scieszka/Smith.

In the interests of not judging others too harshly (lest I, as a result, am left without excuse) I must point out that the sheer invention and novelty of this book makes it worth reading at least once. The basis for my extremely low rating is that this book is not even close to being up to par with the other work of Scieszka and Smith. It isn't even in the same league as works like The Stinky Cheese Man and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs.

Unless you are a big fan of Scieszka and Smith, I recommend that you look somewhere else (the aforementioned books or Math Curse). Baloney, Henry P. is not their best.

Rating:
Summary: For children 4 to 8? Give me a break...
Review: If you haven't ready Scieszka (gesundheit) and Smith's other books, that's fine. You're just missing out on a whole lot of good humor. More on that later...

"Dilectare ut Docere" - the Latin phrase is a perfect description of this book. It means, roughly, "Delight them in order to teach them." If you want to unclog your child's television-clogged synapses, get this book. An alien lost his WHAT?

If you have a sense of humor and don't have "Squids will be Squids" and "The Stinky Cheese Man" then you're missing out. And so are your kids. "Math Curse" is good too...(my wife the math teacher makes me say that).

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as their others
Review: Jon S. and Lane S. are the best children (adult?) authors/illustrators out there. As with their other books, this one has great pictures, and a great premise, BUT the story is not tight, and seems to be more about the pictures this time and less about the story. Again, great illustrations, but I actually left this book at the bookstore as the story didn't capture me.

Rating:
Summary: One Very Tall Tale.....
Review: Little alien, Henry, is late to school again and his teacher Mrs Bugscuffle has had it. This time he's getting permanent lifelong detention unless he has a really good and believable excuse as to why he's late. So Henry launches into his story of how he lost his zimulis on the way to szkola and ended up on a razzo that blasted him to the planet Astrosus where he entertained the Astro guys with his piksas until they decided they should eat him....and so forth and so on until he escapes, hops back in his razzo and makes it to szkola just seven minutes late..... The dynamic duo, Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith have done it again, authored and illustrated an imaginative tall tale that will mesmerize youngsters with its hilarious premise, unique wordplay and detailed, busy, vivid artwork. Though Henry's adventure takes place in a galaxy far away, kids will have no trouble identifying with a hero whose problems are remarkably similar to their own. With an afterword and decoder (transmitted from deep space) at the end to help decipher the text, Baloney (Henry P.) is a charming and amusing story the entire family will enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: John Scieszka is a big, hilarious kid!
Review: Our bookstore had John Scieszka in for a signing last Friday, and he was as much fun for the adults as he was for the kids. He started writing stories in the 3rd grade and has continued ever since. "Baloney" is his latest creation. Henry P. Baloney is late for school- AGAIN- and has to come up with a pretty good reason that is both adventurous and believeable. It starts with losing his pencil and escalates into being abducted by enemies and the like, all of which has made him 7 minutes late and still sans pencil. Scieszka uses what he calls "alien lanugage" for words like "pencil", "school" and "desk"- all of which are included in a handy-dandy glossary in the back of the book. The illustrations are colorful and imaginative- Scieszka's humor is charming and witty. Be sure to check out his books "The Stinky Cheese Man", "The TRUE Story of the 3 Little Pigs", and his "Time Warp Trio" series. His new "TWT" series book "Sam Samauri" is planned to hit stores this fall.

Rating:
Summary: A Goulash of Languages in a Far-Fetched Tall Tale
Review: The best children's books entrance you with their images, the story and the images build on one another, and the story adds dimensions that are unanticipated and interesting. This book almost meets those tests, and adds to your language skills in the process.

"Last Tuesday morning, at 8:37 a.m., Henry P. Baloney was late once too often." "That's it," said Miss Bugscuffle. "Permanent Lifelong Detention . . . unless you have one very good and very believable excuse."

Then begins the wildest tale tale you've ever heard. It all starts when a zimulis is misplaced. It is on a deski in a torakku on the way to szkola, and suddenly the torakku goes past! Henry grabbed his zimulis and jumped out, right onto a razzo launch pad. He opened the pordo and landed on the next razzo while it was blasting off.

Then things got really strange!

If you could see the illustrations, you would be able to make more of this story. You would probably guess that a zimulis is a pencil and that a torakku is a truck. Decoding these strange words will definitely keep your mind occupied. Just when you think you have them figured out, they switch again. It turns out that the strange words are in Finnish, Latin, Ugbaric, Maltese, Swahili, French, Melanesian Pidgen, Esperanto, Italian, Spoonerisms, Dutch, Japanese, Welsh, German, Inuktitut, Latvian, and transpositions. There is an afterword that tips you off, and a decoder to help you decipher the words. But you will have much more fun trying it on your own, learning from the context of the surrounding words and the illustrations.

So obviously, the text and the illustrations build on one another. Because you aren't always sure what the words mean, the story is unexpected.

Unfortunately, the tall tale itself follows a path similar enough to all tall tales that it fails to intrigue of its own merit (without the clever word plays). I graded the book down one star for this weakness.

I am also unsure how much fun it will be read this book over and over again. After all, at some point your child and you will know what each word means and how Henry's predicament ends up. Without the suspense that you will genuinely feel on the first time, this book will probably become much less special.

If you are interested in intriguing your child with the potential of words to fascinate and draw attention, this is a definite book to have. The illustrations are outstanding, and nicely amplify the very unusual text.

After you and your child have read the book, you can have some fun discussions about how to use context to determine which meanings of English words are intended. As you know, many words (like "green") can have many different meanings. Are you supposed to see the color or a person who is inexperienced?

Explore the full potential of any story, using all the tools at your disposal!

Rating:
Summary: late again
Review: This book tells about a little boy who is late for school. When the teacher asks him for his excuse, the boy comes up with a whopper of a tale full of some very strange words. Some of the words are almost familiar, while others sound like they are from outer space. That is, if you don't know Latvian, Finnish, or Inuqtitut, since each of the words is a real world from some language of the world. Despite the strangeness of the words, the story is perfectly understandable due to the excellent illustrations. The book includes a glossary at the back, explaining the source and meaning of each of the strange words. The book is not scary at all, and it is good fun, especially for boys. It contains about 500 words.

Rating:
Summary: Jabberwocky variant
Review: This book tells about a little boy who is late for school. When the teacher asks him for his excuse, the boy comes up with a whopper of a tale full of some very strange words. Some of the words are almost familiar, while others sound like they are from outer space. That is, if you don't know Latvian, Finnish, or Inuqtitut, since each of the words is a real world from some language of the world. Despite the strangeness of the words, the story is perfectly understandable due to the excellent illustrations. The book includes a glossary at the back, explaining the source and meaning of each of the strange words. The book is not scary at all, and it is good fun, especially for boys. It contains about 500 words.