The Spaghetti-Slurping Sewer Serpent

by Laura Ripes, Aaron Zenz (Illustrator)

Overview

Sammy Sanders can’t sleep. He is 77 percent sure that a spaghetti-slurping serpent lives in his sewer. Sammy and his sidekicks—his sister, Sally, and their slobbery dog, Stan—set out to discover the truth. What Sammy finds is a surprise in this tongue-twisting mystery featuring the slippery letter S. The bright, fun artwork was created in colored pencil.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761461012
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	04/01/2012
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	716,117
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD580L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Author Laura Ripes has been working as a voiceover talent (under the name Laura Russell) since 1990. She says tongue twisters before recording to help with her diction. She wrote this story so children could practice the tricky letter S and be entertained at the same time. She lives in Vernon Hills, Illinois, with her husband, their three daughters, and their chocolate lab puppy.

Editorial Reviews

A pint-sized sleuth tracks a purple underground monster. When Mom scrapes the family's uneaten spaghetti into the sink, young Sammy Sanders hears strange slurping sounds. He becomes "77 percent convinced" that a spaghetti-slurping serpent lives in his sewer, and can't get to sleep. The next morning, Sammy and his little sister Sally investigate. There are meatballs and strands of limp spaghetti around the manhole cover! Sammy, whose round glasses make the whites of his eyes look as enormous as an owl's, can barely contain his excitement. After he removes the cover, Sally slips on some sauce and lands in the sewer, becoming a smelly sludgy mess. Sammy's left to investigate alone and comes up with a brilliant idea. Late that night, he sneaks out of the house with a salty snack for himself and a bowl of spaghetti for the serpent. But he falls asleep, and the huge serpent slithers up to the scrumptious spaghetti. Slurping sounds startle Sammy awake; he's face-to-face with the monster. There's just one thing to do: Share! Sammy' salty snack earns him a friend for life. And that night, he sleeps soundly, 100% sure that there's a serpent in his sewer. Zenz's illustrations, in Prismacolor colored pencil, look generic, but Ripes' yarn has pace and phonetic crackle. Fun enough once through, but not much more. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews

K-Gr 2—Sammy Sanders is obsessed with a spaghetti-slurping sewer serpent and, with the help of his sister, Sally, is on a mission to find the creature. She spies what seems to be a clue and falls into the sewer, but to no avail. When Sammy decides to bait it with a bowl of spaghetti, he comes face-to-face with a gigantic beast with a lovable heart. Prismacolor colored pencil drawings depict the characters' developing dynamic. Unfortunately, there's not much detail to spice up the quickly realized plot, and the heavy focus on alliteration immediately grows cumbersome, bogging down the story line. "The sewer serpent slithers up to the scrumptious spaghetti and slurps it from a spork while swinging on the Sanders' squeaky swing." The author wrote this story "so children could practice the tricky letter S and be entertained at the same time." The result is disappointing.—Meg Smith, Cumberland County Public Library, Fayetteville, NC

School Library Journal