  | Recess Queen Author: O'Neill, Alexis | |
| Price: $23.28 | ||
Summary:
Mean Jean is the biggest bully on the school playground until a new girl arrives and challenges Jean's status as the Recess Queen.
| Illustrator: | Huliska-Beith, Laura |
Video Preview:
| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: LG Reading Level: 3.00 Points: .5 Quiz: 55842 | Reading Counts Information: Interest Level: K-2 Reading Level: 2.60 Points: 1.0 Quiz: 27676 | |
Common Core Standards
Grade K → Reading → RL Literature → Read Alouds
Grade K → Reading → RL Literature → K.RL Key Ideas & Details
Grade K → Reading → RL Literature → K.RL Craft & Structure
Grade K → Reading → RL Literature → K.RL Integration of Knowledge & Ideas
Grade 1 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 1.RL Key Ideas & Details
Grade 1 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 1.RL Integration of Knowledge & Ideas
Grade 1 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 1.RL Range of Reading & Level of Text Complexity
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (12/15/01)
School Library Journal (03/02)
Booklist (03/01/02)
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (03/02)
Full Text Reviews:
School Library Journal - 03/01/2002 K-Gr 3-Mean Jean is the recess queen. No one dares touch a ball, swing a bat, or slip down the slide until she says so. Until, that is, the day that Katie Sue shows up at school. Told in a rollicking rhyme, the story offers a lighthearted look at a serious topic in schools and on playgrounds everywhere-the bully. Katie Sue puts Mean Jean in her place in a surprisingly easy way-simply by being too new to know any better. In a nice twist, when confronted by Mean Jean, instead of backing away, the newcomer invites her to play. Thus she is transformed into a likable character at the end of the story, now surrounded by friends on the blacktop rather than foes. Both the text and the art are smart, sassy, and energetic. Rendered in collage and acrylics in vibrant shades of fuchsia, lime green, and azure blue, the illustrations showcase Mean Jean as an over-the-top cartoon character who is frenetic and effervescent. The text effectively dips, swirls, and slants around the action of the art, further marrying the two. This queen would make a perfect pair with another infamous female tyrant, the title character in Barbara Bottner's Bootsie Barker Bites (Putnam, 1992).-Lisa Gangemi Krapp, Middle Country Public Library, Centereach, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. - Copyright 2002 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
Booklist - 03/01/2002 Mean Jean is the playground bully (she pushed kids and smooshed kids, / lollapalooshed kids, / hammered em, slammered em, / kitz and kajammer em). No one can stand up to her, until new kid Katie Sue arrives. Freckled, bespectacled, pig-tailed Katie Sue asks the bully to jump rope and be her friend (I like ice cream / I like tea, / I want Jean to / jump with me!), and everything changes. OK, kids know that schoolyard power games aren't that easily solved, but they'll enjoy seeing the bully as needy, and they will recognize how everything can suddenly shift. The physicalness of the words makes the wild nonsense rhyme great for reading aloud and joining in, and the brilliantly colored, computer-generated art captures the yelling playground mayhem that's both scary and wonderful. - Copyright 2002 Booklist.
