The Truth About My Unbelievable Summer . . .

by Davide Cali, Benjamin Chaud

Overview

What really happened over the summer break? A curious teacher wants to know. The epic explanation? What started out as a day at the beach turned into a globe-spanning treasure hunt with high-flying hijinks, exotic detours, an outrageous cast of characters, and one very mischievous bird! Is this yet another tall tale, or is the truth just waiting to be revealed? From the team behind I Didn't Do My Homework Because . . . and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School . . . comes a fantastical fast-paced, detail-rich illustrated summer adventure that's so unbelievable, it just might be true!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452144832
Publisher:	Chronicle Books LLC
Publication date:	07/05/2016
Pages:	44
Sales rank:	584,808
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	500L (what's this?)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Davide Cali and Benjamin Chaud are the author/illustrator team behind A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School . . . and I Didn't Do My Homework Because. . . . They live in France.

Editorial Reviews

"A fabulous escapade."-Booklist

"Will have readers chortling."-Kirkus Reviews

"Davide and Benjamin know how to make kids laugh, and they understand how to hit that perfectly silly and fantastical note with both words and images."—Design Mom

"A fast-paced story that will keep kids chuckling and perhaps inspire their own unbelievable tall tales."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

06/01/2016
Gr 1–3—The little boy from I Didn't Do My Homework Because… tells an increasingly tall tale about his summer vacation. The excitement begins with the cover (depicting the boy and his dog entangled in the arms of an octopus) and is carried through to the endpapers (featuring the creature's suction cups). "So, what did you do this summer?" asks his teacher. He recounts a magical tale involving a treasure map, pirates, a submarine, a flying machine, yetis, and more. Careful readers will pick up on several visual clues and jokes. Spare text is enhanced by intricate cartoon illustrations in this picture book with an attractive chapter book trim size. VERDICT A fast-paced story that will keep kids chuckling and perhaps inspire their own unbelievable tall tales.—Andrea Pavlik, Huntington Public Library, NY

School Library Journal

2016-04-13
An answer to the classic first-day-of-school question is unspooled in tall-tale fashion by the white boy with the black unruly hair in the too-small suit first met in I Didn't Do My Homework Because… (2014).His tall, long-nosed teacher, also white, asks the question, and the story starts on a beach where the boy and his dachshund find a treasure map. Immediately, a magpie steals the map, and the chase begins: from a pirate ship to an adventure with a giant squid, from a submarine to a movie set where an actress (with a long nose) in medieval dress enables the boy to retrieve the map. There's a hot air balloon trip, an unexpected rescue by his uncle's flying machine, and then a drop-off on an island where that magpie flies off with the map again, forcing the boy to continue his travels to the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, and a snowy country populated by yetis. Finally, the boy and the dog find the treasure (some rather tame snorkeling masks) on the original beach. They discover underwater beauty but miss a real treasure chest. They also miss the joke that readers won't: the teacher has engineered the whole adventure! The small trim, terse, first-person narrative, and detailed, cartoonlike pen-and-colored ink drawings will have individual readers chortling, at least the first time around.Fun for a first read but unlikely to have children calling for another. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews

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