A Girl, A Boy, and Three Robbers

by Gail Gauthier, Joe Cepeda (Illustrator)

Overview

Perfect humor for 2nd and 3rd graders.

When Brandon has to go to Hannah’s house after school, she always gets to be the leader while he has to play her sidekick or some villain she’s out to destroy. Then the horrible Sunderland kids try to steal Hannah’s monster cat, Buttercup, and suddenly Brandon and Hannah have an exciting real-life mission on their hands. All the games of vampire hunter and enemy agent in the world couldn’t have prepared them for the task of saving Buttercup from the Sunderlands’ grubby clutches.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101011195
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	07/03/2008
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	64
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	6 - 8 Years

About the Author

Gail Gauthier writes in a spacious room her family refers to as "the office," but which everyone else knows as "the cellar." When she isn't writing or indulging in her habit of reading more than one book at a time, she tends to the business of running a family. She does a lot of "mom-type" stuff (such as masterminding birthday parties and driving unenthusiastic children to music lessons), helps with special events at the local elementary school, and chaperones field trips--activities that provide her with plenty of material about which to write. She lives in Conneticut with her husband and their two sons, William and Robert.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 2-4

Brandon describes his adventures with his strong-willed and imaginative friend Hannah. Though he'd rather watch TV, he always joins in with her ideas, since she makes him. In this follow-up to A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat (Putnam, 2007), the two have numerous encounters with the Sunderland "triplets" (twins and a very large younger sibling), rambunctious children who seem determined to steal Hannah's cat. Filled with comic moments and realistic escapades, this short chapter book is laugh-out-loud funny. The characters fairly jump off the pages, and readers will feel as though they are with folks from their own neighborhoods. Cepeda's comic-book-style illustrations show a lot of attention to detail. This offering will work well as a read-aloud or for independent readers.-Sharon R. Pearce, Longfellow Elementary School, Oak Park, IL

School Library Journal

On the three afternoons a week Brandon spends at Hannah's house, he claims he would rather watch TV than play Hannah's imaginative games, but he can't resist the real adventures when neighbor children decide they want to keep Hannah's horrible cat. The episodic plot of this sequel to A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat (2007) seems to lurch rather than roll forward. Young readers may be confused by the fact that while some chapters are self-contained episodes, other adventures require several installments. The three scary Sunderlands, a pair of first-grade twins and their oversized younger brother are not so much frightening as badly behaved, and Brandon, Hannah and fat, orange Buttercup the cat are equally weakly developed characters. On the other hand, Hannah has an admirable imagination and makes good use of familiar literary characters. Readers who enjoyed the humor and energy of the first novel will certainly want to see what she and Brandon are up to in this installment. Cepeda's infrequent angular grey-scale drawings add interest to this text-heavy chapter book. (Fiction. 7-9)

Kirkus Reviews