Julius

by Angela Johnson, Dav Pilkey (Illustrator)

Overview

A humorous and joyful celebration of love and sharing by the award-winning and bestselling duo, Angela Johnson and Dav Pilkey.

When Maya's grandfather comes to visit from Alaska, he brings a surprise in a crate — something, he says, to teach her "fun and sharing." Maya hopes it's a horse or a big brother. But instead, it's a huge, pink pig named Julius! Maya's parents see Julius as a slob, but Maya feels differently. She sees a playmate, a protector, and a sharer in all that's magical and wild.

This brand-new edition of the classic picture book by award-winning author Angela Johnson and illustrator Dav Pilkey will teach a new generation of readers about friendship, affection, and sharing, with lots of laughs along the way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781338898330
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	11/07/2023
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	445,740
Product dimensions:	8.25(w) x 11.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Angela Johnson was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, but raised in Windham, Ohio; the only girl in a family of five. She now lives in Northeastern Ohio in a 100-year-old house full of plants. When not writing, she travels. On one of her trips to the California desert, the inspiration for her first novel, Toning the Sweep, came about.

When Dav Pilkey was a kid, he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia. Dav was so disruptive in class that his teachers made him sit out in the hallway every day. Luckily, Dav loved to draw and make up stories. He spent his time in the hallway creating his own original comic books — the very first adventures of Dog Man and Captain Underpants. In the second grade, Dav's teacher ripped up his comics and told him he couldn't spend the rest of his life making silly books. Fortunately, Dav was not a very good listener.

Editorial Reviews

★ "In this exuberant celebration of love and sharing, Maya... learns that friendship is a two-way street." — Publishers Weekly, starred review

★ "An exuberant, joyful collaboration." — The Horn Book, starred review

★ "Angela Johnson's exuberant story about friendship and sharing is perfectly paired with Dav Pilkey's bold swinging artwork." — School Library Journal, starred review

From the Publisher

12/01/2023

PreS-K—Jeff Mack, Mo Willems, and others have gone this route: presenting a story that makes no sense but has so much humor and heart that readers will love it anyway. Maya's grandfather, who splits his time between Alabama and Alaska, has a gift for Maya. A large pink pig, perhaps four times her size, named Julius, becomes her best friend and mentor, and she becomes his. Pilkey has a riot building the scenes of Maya's unpleasantly grim parents, who dislike Julius and his coffee-guzzling dribbling, and the joy of Julius, galloping down the road like the pony Maya always wanted. Every scene of them is a portrait of a mutual admiration society in a growth spurt, even as Maya makes Julius develop manners, and Julius makes Maya aware of how much fun it is "trying on hats and dancing to jazz records" with friends her own size and age. Whether this is an imaginary friend or a real pet, or any version of those, the team of Maya and Julius know how to be friends, rubbing off each other's rough edges. VERDICT Color-drenched acrylic paintings and outsized proportions provide humor and affection in equal doses. Readers will want to settle in for a second read.—Kimberly Olson Fakih

School Library Journal

In this exuberant celebration of love and sharing, Maya is given an Alaskan pig and learns that friendship is a two-way street. Johnson's humorous, upbeat text rings with its own rhythm as it introduces Julius, a pig with a fondness for old movies, trying on clothes (``anything blue and stretchy'') and eating peanut butter ``from the jar, without getting any on the ceiling.'' As Maya shares Julius's version of fun and games, so the clever porker learns from Maya ``that even though he was a pig he didn't have to act like he lived in a barn.'' Pilkey's ( When Cats Dream ) illustrations are a felicitous departure for this gifted artist. Painted in blocks of fluorescent color, his paintings zing with the joy of living and perfectly capture the book's infectious carnival spirit. A small but enchanting detail is his assortment of patchwork squares, decorated with patterns and posies, which appears as wallpaper and frames several scenes. Jubilant and subtly instructive. Ages 3-6. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Maya's grandfather, back from wintering in Alaska, brings a gift for Maya. She hopes it's a horse or an older brother, but it's a pig. Julius is no ordinary pig; he's an Alaskan pig, who can do polar bear imitations. Much to Maya's parents' dismay, he also rolls himself in flour when he wants homebaked cookies, leaves crumbs on the sheets, and doesn't pick up his towels. However, Maya knows another Julius, the one who'll swing for hours on the playground and protect Maya from scary things in the night. There's no real story here--this is more a string of one-liners--but Maya and Julius are such engaging characters and their relationship is so silly and strong that they transcend the absence of plot. Much of the characters' charm comes from Pilkey's eye-catching illustrations, which mix fabric and watercolors into collage-style art bursting with fun. Maya and her family are African Americans, but this is just the sort of book where the race of the characters is incidental to the story. The dustjacket--which shows Julius, sporting sunglasses, listening to an old-fashioned phonograph, with Maya on his back--has instant appeal.

Ilene Cooper