hlbirk's Full Review: Jon Scieszka - Baloney Henry P.
Oh where do I begin? When my kids bring books home from school I'm always curious as to why they chose what they did. Most of the time it's pretty easy to tell...Clifford is normally a big hit. Lately my twin 5 year old boys have been choosing "out of the box" type books and this one especially has left my mind spinning out of control.
Baloney (Henry P.) is "received and decoded" by Jon Scieszka and the "visual recreation" is done by Lane Smith. Up until this point I had not heard of either one of these gentlemen. After reading the story, I'm not so sure I want to. :)
The story revolves around a little green alien boy named Henry P. Baloney. Evidentially Henry has been having a little trouble getting to school on time. Like any normal child, he comes up with a story that's just a shade on the outrageous and unbelievable side. His teacher, Miss Bugscuffle, threatens Henry with Permanent Lifelong Detention if he doesn't come up with a very good and very believable excuse. Henry's story begins when he misplaces his zimulis...it continues on with strange words from different languages, and none of it makes any sense until you get to the end. If you make it that far. This is by far the hardest book I think I've ever read!
Henry goes through a few trials and tribulations during his journey only to be sent back in a sighing flosser to fracasse our szkola. Make any sense to you? I didn't think so. :)
The illustrations are colorful and entertaining and without them you'd never be able to understand what the heck was going on. They do have a "collage" type format to them, but overall they're very pleasing to the eye.
At the very end of the book there is a translation to all the new words you just babbled your way through. (And yes, the entire time your kids were wondering if you truly new how to read!) I won't list the entire list but here a few examples:
BLASSA (UQBARIC) meaning raygun.
RAZZO (ITALIAN) meaning rocket.
SIGHING FLOSSER (SPOONERISM) meaning flyer saucer.
ZIMULIS (LATVIAN) meaning pencil.
SZKOLA (POLISH) meaning school.
There is an afterward at the end, obviously, that says:
This transmission was received directly from deep space. once the signals were decoded, it became clear that this was a story about a lifeform similar to many Earthlings. Even more amazing was the discovery that the story is written in a combination of many different Earth languages including Latvian, Swahili, Finnish, Esperanto, and Inuktitut. Who knows why.
I sure as heck don't know why either. Baloney (Henry P.) is a very difficult book to read. Would I recommend it to others? No. My kids are still pretty young and this was just too difficult to understand. In my opinion, one of the main reasons it was chosen was because of the cover. It is a hard cover book with a silver finish to it. Almost like aluminum foil. There is a small picture of Henry right in the middle and he's very cute. Unless you're really, really bored I'd say stay away from this one.
ISBN 0-670-89248-3
Other books by Jon and Lane:
The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
Math Curse
Squids Will Be Squids
The Time Warp Trio Series
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