  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 02/15/2016 The multitalented Bell comes through with another hit—a school story with heart. At show-and-tell, Caroline’s first-grade class has some neat stuff, including a ukulele, a tadpole, and a sombrero. But shy Chuck brings the best one: Woodchuck. The cute and funny pal is so entertaining that the teacher invites him to come to school every day. Since Chuck is sweet on Caroline, Woodchuck is especially attentive to her, sharpening her pencil and giving her Chuck’s hat, cupcake, and flower painting. When Chuck whispers Caroline’s forgotten lines to her in the school play, their friendship is sealed, and the three friends walk home from school together with smiles all around. Bell’s warm and colorful graphic style, which uses ink and digital illustrations, embraces the many personalities of the class, as well as giving off the happy vibes of burgeoning affection. The bright and cheerful double-page spreads show the toothy, fuzzy-tailed, lovable Woodchuck comically facilitating a flowering friendship. - Copyright 2016 Booklist. Bulletin for the Center... - 04/01/2016 First-grader Caroline and her classmates are so amused by the woodchuck that fellow student Chuck brings for show-and-tell that the class and teacher decide that Woodchuck should join them every day. When things go wrong for Caroline, it’s Woodchuck to the rescue—or is Woodchuck just acting on behalf of shy Chuck? After all, it is Chuck’s hat that Woodchuck lends to Caroline when her ears get cold at recess, Chuck’s cupcake that Woodchuck gives to Caroline when she drops hers, and Chuck’s painting that Woodchuck presents to her when her own painting gets ruined. When Caroline forgets her lines in the class play, it’s Chuck to the rescue, finally, and it’s Chuck who offers to walk home with her. The gently budding friendship (and perhaps a bit of romance?) between Chuck and Caroline has a quiet appeal that is balanced nicely with Woodchuck’s amusing antics. Caroline’s casual narration is credibly primary-grade (“Woodchuck started playing with some of our show-and-tell stuff! It was hilarious!”), as is Chuck’s shyness. The ink and digital illustrations are clear and crisply composed, and the heads of the child figures are entertainingly geometric: Caroline’s bespectacled head with its brown wedge hairdo is triangular, while lanky Chuck’s bullet head sports short ginger fringe on top, and another classmate’s buzz cut gives his head a rectangular appearance. Woodchuck is the visual star, though, with his rotund brown body, widely spaced eyes, big nose, and endearing buckteeth and rosy cheeks. Pull this out to refresh a Groundhog Day story session or share it as a sweet-but-not-sticky friendship story. JH - Copyright 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Loading...
 |