Roscoe tries to figure out what NOT to do
Written: Jun 02 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Cute and sweet
Cons: Good reading, but not great children's literature
The Bottom Line: Roscoe Riley's Rule #1 book is a fun chapter book for lower elementary children.
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| Redlass's Full Review: Katherine Applegate - Never Glue Your Friends to C... |
Parents of young children quickly learn that it is impossible to cover all the possible "thou shalt nots" when it comes to children. Sure, we'll remember the big ones: "Don’t play in traffic" or “Don’t touch the hot stove.” We’ll probably even remember the "Don't stick a fork in the light socket" and "Don't drink the Draino."
But what parent thinks to forbid their child from sticking Play-Doh in their ears or sends them to pre-school with the admonition, "The bathroom is not a water park"? Or have you ever pre-warned your child, "Your fork is not a hairbrush and the chip dip is not shampoo"? It's a guarantee that the sea of imagination and creativity of any child under five can drown even the cleverest of parents.
Roscoe Riley is proof of this maxim. Created by Katherine Applegate, best known for as the author of Animorphs and a large number of teen romances, Roscoe Riley is a first grader who really, really wants to be good. What gets in his way is his really active imagination and his desire to "fix" things so that they'll please the adults around him. Alas, everything backfires and he finds himself in constant trouble.
The book opens with young Roscoe sitting in his time-out chair. He tells us why he is there and assures us that what he did sounded like a good idea at the time. Never Glue Your Friends to Chairs is the first installment in the series of chapter books for young readers.
The story is a quick reads and ideal for a read-aloud to those children who have graduated from picture books. While my 10-year-old is reading teen novels, he was still entertained by the Roscoe books and has gone about repeating some of the jokes found in them (such as, "Hey! Your epidermis is showing!")
Roscoe sympathizes with his teacher and doesn't want to see her quit the way his kindergarten teacher did. She's trying to prepare them for an open house, but no one will settle down. Nor will the headbands with boppy balls on them stay on the children’s heads during their Bee Song.
Roscoe has an answer for this. He takes the "special" super-duper glue that he snuck out of his mother's junk drawer and dabs it on all the chairs and all the headbands. Sure enough, the kids stay in their chairs and the headbands stay on their heads. Then, with parents and principal watching, chaos breaks lose when people want to move.
Eventually all is sorted out and Roscoe comes to see the error of his ways. His parents, while understanding about how he got into this situation, still make him deal with the consequences of his actions and put him in time-out in the hopes that the lessons will sink in.
Roscoe is a delightful child, one who is a less sarcastic male version of Junie B. Jones. He gets into lots of trouble, in no small part because he is a creative, insightful child. However, his behavior isn't malicious. Rather, he just thinks he's come up with a good solution to what he sees as a problem.
Katherine Applegate has also drawn several cute pictures to go with the book. The pencil drawings are almost cartoonish in nature, but support the story without distracting overmuch from the text.
Roscoe is a charming child who is written with a light touch and a delightful sense of humor.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Redlass
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Member: Bridgette
Location: Lansing, Michigan
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I have many loves: family, books, theater, writing, and the many communities I belong to.
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