Stuck

by Oliver Jeffers, Oliver Jeffers (Illustrator)

Overview

From the illustrator of the #1 smash The Day the Crayons Quit comes another bestseller—a giggle-inducing tale of everything tossed, thrown, and hurled in order to free a kite!

When Floyd's kite gets stuck in a tree, he's determined to get it out. But how? Well, by knocking it down with his shoe, of course. But strangely enough, it too gets stuck. And the only logical course of action . . . is to throw his other shoe. Only now it's stuck! Surely there must be something he can use to get his kite unstuck. An orangutan? A boat? His front door? Yes, yes, and yes. And that's only the beginning. Stuck is Oliver Jeffers' most absurdly funny story since The Incredible Book-Eating Boy. Childlike in concept and vibrantly illustrated as only Oliver Jeffers could, here is a picture book worth rescuing from any tree.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399257377
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	11/10/2011
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.26(w) x 12.48(h) x 0.44(d)
Lexile:	AD530L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

 Oliver Jeffers (www.oliverjeffersworld.com) makes art and tells stories. His books include How to Catch a Star; Lost and Found, which was the recipient of the prestigious Nestle Children’s Book Prize Gold Award in the U.K. and was later adapted into an award-winning animated film; The Way Back Home; The Incredible Book Eating Boy; The Great Paper Caper; The Heart and the Bottle, which was made into a highly acclaimed iPad application narrated by Helena Bonham Carter; Up and Down, the New York Times bestselling Stuck; The Hueys in the New Sweater, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year; and This Moose Belongs to Me, a New York Times bestseller. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, Oliver now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
 

Editorial Reviews

* "Jeffers’ light-handed illustrations are hilariously droll . . . The giggle-inducing conclusion leaves some stuff, um, up in the air."—A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2011, starred review — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

* "Yields a childlike aesthetic sure to tickle the funny bones of its target audience–and of the adults who share the story with youngsters."—School Library Journal, starred review — School Library Journal (starred review)

"With deceptive simplicity and sophisticated illustration, this comic look at problem solving will have wide appeal."—Booklist — Booklist

From the Publisher

"With deceptive simplicity and sophisticated illustration, this comic look at problem solving will have wide appeal."--Booklist

Booklist

Everything but the kitchen sink gets tossed up a tree to help Floyd retrieve his kite--oops, there goes the kitchen sink too! Floyd has one approach, and one approach only, to kite recovery: Throw something up to knock the kite down. He flings up a bucket of paint, the milkman, real trucks, a full-size lighthouse and "a curious whale, in the wrong place at the wrong time." Everything sticks. Jeffers' light-handed illustrations are hilariously droll. Some pages symbolize mood with a single color, boy and tree both murky brown with irritation or red with frustration. The text is handwritten in a childish yet legible scrawl, with liberal use of uppercase letters. The comically deadpan narration never overtells, moving straight from "Floyd fetched Mitch" (a cat) to "Cats get stuck in trees all the time, but this was getting ridiculous." Sometimes Floyd verges on solutions, but he always lapses into the familiar pattern: "Floyd fetched a ladder. He was going to sort this out once and for all… / … and up he threw it. / I'm sure you can guess what happened." Finally, Floyd fetches a saw, holds the blade carefully against the tree trunk--"and hurled it up the tree." The giggle-inducing conclusion leaves some stuff, um, up in the air. Floyd's stubbornness and the smorgasbord-filled tree remain funny through repeated readings, offering kids the special glee of knowing more than the protagonist. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews

It's the "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" device, and it works brilliantly. But…it's not the what of the story that makes it so terrific, but the visual how. Jeffers is the master of the scribble: of a cloud, the leaves of the offending tree, the boy's hair, the orangutan's fur, and the burst of Floyd's frustration floating delicately above his head when things really start sticking. Jeffers gives these scribbles ample room with lots of white space, and his expert variation of scale and color keep each page full of energy.
—The New York Times Book Review

Lisa Brown