The Truth About My Unbelievable School . . .

June 1, 2018
Henry, the dapper lad in the black suit with the unruly hair, makes another appearance in Cali and Chaud's (A Funny Thing Happened at the Museum..., 2017, etc.) latest collaboration, this time showing a new student the highlights of their titular school. While the new girl seems rather unimpressed, readers may raise an eyebrow or two at the class pet (a ginormous jellyfish), the music teacher--a Las Vegas-era Elvis look-alike with an electric guitar--or the tentacles escaping from behind a hallway door, two students and a dog caught in their grasp. Surely, though, they will thrill at the "shortcut" to recess and its attendant delights, which include swings, a slide, a Ferris wheel, treehouses, and a roller coaster, all up high in the branches of a single tree. In nods to The Wizard of Oz film and Harry Potter, the janitor sits behind a curtain watching and controlling everything, and the office of the magical principal is reached by rowboat that plies a basement river beyond a sleeping dragon. The ending scene explains the new girl's blasé attitude, but once read, the surprise is gone. Chaud's delicate lines and muted colors give the illustrations a bit of a Victorian Gothic feel, and the antics of Henry's dog are amusing. The students and teachers are diverse, though both Henry and the new girl are white. Readers may wish their own schools looked more like this one, maybe minus the swimming instructor and the mashed-potato machine.... (Picture book. 5-8)

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May 15, 2018
Grades K-3 Having made the leap from picture-book to beginning reader in The Truth about My Unbelievable Summer (2016), Henry returns to the former for an incredible foray through the halls and bowels of his school. When his teacher asks him to show a new student around the school, Henry agrees but confesses to the new girl, there really isn't much to see. Only, he says this from the top of a ladder while feeding the class pet?a giant jellyfish. This sets the formula for the remainder of the book: Henry making blas� observations that stand in humorous contrast to the illustrated scene. As the pair moves from classroom to classroom, readers will indeed find much to see: a Seussian mashed-potato dispenser in the cafeteria, a giant robot in the science room, a dragon guarding the principal's office, etc. Simple sentences skirt pages filled with Chaud's energetic artwork, which overflows with clever details and hints of the story's surprise ending. As always, Henry's adventures blur the line between imagination and reality, and kids will willingly believe in his escapades.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2018
Once again (A Funny Thing Happened at the Museum... etc.), Cali and Chaud tease humor from the rift between amusingly unreliable young Henry's statements ("Our swimming instructor is kind of strange") and what the viewer sees (the school's swimming instructor is a sea monster). With its fine-lined, borderline-macabre art and small trim size, this book could almost be an Edward Gorey creation.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

June 1, 2018
Henry, the dapper lad in the black suit with the unruly hair, makes another appearance in Cali and Chaud's (A Funny Thing Happened at the Museum..., 2017, etc.) latest collaboration, this time showing a new student the highlights of their titular school. While the new girl seems rather unimpressed, readers may raise an eyebrow or two at the class pet (a ginormous jellyfish), the music teacher--a Las Vegas-era Elvis look-alike with an electric guitar--or the tentacles escaping from behind a hallway door, two students and a dog caught in their grasp. Surely, though, they will thrill at the "shortcut" to recess and its attendant delights, which include swings, a slide, a Ferris wheel, treehouses, and a roller coaster, all up high in the branches of a single tree. In nods to The Wizard of Oz film and Harry Potter, the janitor sits behind a curtain watching and controlling everything, and the office of the magical principal is reached by rowboat that plies a basement river beyond a sleeping dragon. The ending scene explains the new girl's blas� attitude, but once read, the surprise is gone. Chaud's delicate lines and muted colors give the illustrations a bit of a Victorian Gothic feel, and the antics of Henry's dog are amusing. The students and teachers are diverse, though both Henry and the new girl are white. Readers may wish their own schools looked more like this one, maybe minus the swimming instructor and the mashed-potato machine.... (Picture book. 5-8)

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.