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Summary
Summary
A Fable There once was an Eagle and a Lion who had worked together on a lot of books. They did The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!, The Stinky Cheese Man , and Math Curse .'Everyone is waiting for Science Curse ,? said their editor, Queen Bee.'Okay,? said Eagle Scieszka and Lion Smith. ?So why don't we make a book of weird fables with strange morals and call is Squids Will Be Squids ?And they did.MORAL: With these guys, you just never know.Fables have been around for a very long time. Aesop was famous for telling them, although he wasn't the first'or the best-looking. Now from the incomparable team who stood fairy tales on their heads with The Stinky Cheese Man , come fables as you've never heard them before. There's the story of ?Little Walrus,? who tells just a little too much of the truth, and the morality tale of the boastful ?Piece of Toast and Fruit Loops.' We read of Slug, so busy admiring herself that she doesn't see the steamroller behind her, and learn the wise lessons of ?Hand, Foot, and Tongue? (Moral: There are some things we don't talk about at the dinner table).In their inimitable style, Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith have created contemporary fables that reflect all the bossiness, sneakiness, bragging and silliness of our everyday lives. Of course, these tales are handled with such tact and sensitivity that we would never recognize a person like ourselves in them'would we?Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith are an enormously popular and highly acclaimed author and illustrator team. Mr. Scieszka perfected his keen ear for juvenile humor as an elementary school teacher. He now writes full time. Mr. Smith is a filmmaker as well as a writer and illustrator. He recently designed the characters for the film version of Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach . Jon Scieszka lives in Brooklyn, New York. Lane Smith lives in New York City.
Author Notes
Jon Scieszka was born September 8, 1954 in Flint , Michigan. After he graduated from Culver Military Academy where he was a Lieutenant, he studied to be a doctor at Albion College. He changed career directions and attended Columbia University where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1980. Before he became a full time writer, Scieszka was a lifeguard, painted factories, houses, and apartments and also wrote for magazines. He taught elementary school in New York for ten years as a 1st grade assistant, a 2nd grade homeroom teacher, and a computer, math, science and history teacher in 3rd - 8th grade.
He decided to take off a year from teaching in order to work with Lane Smith, an illustrator, to develop ideas for children's books. His book, The Stinky Cheese Man received the 1994 Rhode Island Children's Book Award. Scieszka's Math Curse, illustrated by Lane Smith, was an American Library Association Notable Book in 1996; a Blue Ribbon Book from the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books in 1995; and a Publisher's Weekly Best Children's Book in 1995. The Stinky Cheese Man received Georgia's 1997 Children's Choice Award and Wisconsin's The Golden Archer Award. Math Curse received Maine's Student Book Award, The Texas Bluebonnet Award and New Hampshire's The Great Stone Face Book Award in 1997. He was appointed the first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature by the Library of Congress in 2008. In 2014 his title, Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor made The New York Times Best Seller List. Frank Einstein and the Electro-Finger made the list in 2015.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-The masters at tweaking chuckles out of familiar tales have now fractured 18 "beastly fables" and twisted "fresh morals" from them. The foreword supplies a background on fables and sets up the device that if you can't say something nice about someone, change the guy's name to an animal. The title is from "Deer, Mouse, Rabbit, & Squid." All four critters are trying to decide what to do: Deer, Mouse, and Rabbit suggest a movie, playing Frisbee, and shopping; Squid responds negatively to all, claims each one is boring and goes home. The other three waste no time and run off to do just what they wanted. "Moral: Squids will be squids." The full-color illustrations are typical of Smith's style and creativity with playfulness in the type size and page design. The warped humor and offbeat bits of wisdom often overstretch to the bizarre and stupid but children will love most of the jejune logic. The most popular fable will be "He Who..." which involves a skunk, musk ox, cabbage, and a terrible smell. You can figure it out from the moral: "He who smelt it, dealt it." Moral of this book: When two wacky minds create zany writing and quirky illustrations, success is a given.-Julie Cummins, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Scieszka and Smith, creators of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, turn their attention away from fairy tales to reinvent the fable, thinly disguising sage bits of advice as pithy morals. Foxes and grapes are too pedestrian for these veteran absurdists, who tackle boastfulness in "Duckbilled Platypus vs. BeefSnakStikR" and who denounce vanity in the story of a skateboarding frog. Unusual characters notwithstanding, each piece highlights an everyday, modern situation in the manner of Aesop's classics. Topics in these 18 tales hit the bull's-eye, running the gamut from the toxic clique (Shark, Wasp and Bacteria wonder why no one eats lunch at their table; "Moral: Think about it") to the dynamics of a group project (Rock, Scissors and Paper all blame one another for their bad grade; "Moral: Shoot") to handling friends and family. In "Termite, Ant, & Echidna," for instance, foolish Ant throws aside his best friend when he meets a new playground pal, realizing too late that "Echidna is another name for Spiny Anteater." Scieszka ventures deep into child appeal territory, as in a gas-passing anecdote about a skunk, musk ox and cabbage ("Moral: He who smelt it, dealt it"). Smith ardently keeps pace with Scieszka's leaps of fancy, lending credence to a talking piece of toast, a walrus with a phone and a spiny, spiteful blowfish. In one full-bleed painting, little green Grasshopper cowers in the giant shadow of his mother as she grills him about his homework; strokes of eggplant-colored paint extend the sweeping size of her tentacle-like appendages, while splatters of softer shades suggest the sweat from her brow. In another, the titular fable, Smith utilizes a cartoon-like progression of panels to contrast the animated expressions of Deer, Mouse and Rabbit as they enthusiastically attempt to plan an outing with that of the deadpan, naysayer Squid. Meanwhile the design, with text printed in three typefaces of multiple sizes and colors, drives home each moral. The oversize format allows for a variety of page layouts, not to mention an in-your-face attitude that will hold readers' rapt attention. Unlike Paul and Marc Rosenthal's satiric effort in Yo, Aesop! Get a Load of These Fables (Children's Forecasts, Mar. 23), this crafty volume pays tribute to the original fables' economy and moral intent. Scieszka and Smith thriftily present one tale per spread, and beneath this duo's playful eccentricity readers will discover some powerful insights into human nature. Ages 7-9. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) Squids will be...kids in this goofy collection of ""fables"" that seem more like verbatim tales from the fifth-grade, here populated by Grasshopper, Frog, Elephant, and Skunk, not to mention Rock, Paper, Scissors, Piece of Toast, and BeefSnakStikT (proudly proclaiming in a stand-off with a platypus, ""I have beef lips""). Kids will see themselves-well, okay, maybe not themselves but other kids-in such characters as whiny Squid, bossy Matches, officious Froot Loops, and self-centered Slug. More affection is granted to Elephant-tenderly portrayed by the illustrator-perpetually late and always forgetting to call home (""Moral: Elephants never forget, except sometimes""). The humor is definitely juvenile and wears a little thin, but Scieszka has perfect pitch when it comes to this kind of thing (""Moral: He who smelt it, dealt it""), and Smith's portraits find the humanity behind the masks. r.s. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
This latest bright, glib collection of tales irreverently updates Aesop-like fables as Beavis and Butthead might have rewritten them. Scieszka and Smith (Summer Reading Is Killing Me, p. 816, etc.) forego tradition by ditching standard animal characters for the likes of a squid, a musk ox, and an animated stick of beef jerky. The introduction explains that fables were a way people could ``gossip about anybodyas long as you could change their name to something like `Lion' or `Mouse' or `Donkey' first.'' Some of the morals work (when Skunk, Musk Ox, and Cabbage argue about who smells, the moral is ``He who smelt it, dealt it''); others are tags without the snap. In illustrations that are as fresh and eyecatching as ever, the goofiness is as enticing as junk food, the colors Fruit-Loop bright, but fables usually have purpose, not punchlines; without such purpose, this is just another joke book for the '90s. (Picture book. 6-10)
Booklist Review
Gr. 2^-6. In Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (1992), Scieszka and Smith took on Mother Goose. Here, it's Aesop they tackle, though in a much less direct (and also not quite as successful) fashion. The 18 contemporary fables (some of which are simply goofy setups with a moral tacked on) may not feature human characters, but they are certainly imbued with concerns pulled from a child's world--from kids' relationships with friends and battles over homework to the TV commercials they watch and the terrible smells (translate this as farts) they joke about. Although the fables are good-humored and inventive, with solid kid appeal, they lack the inspired goofiness and intricate picture-text balance that distinguish The Stinky Cheese Man. Smith's illustrations are fun, but they're surprisingly decorous; their fantasy doesn't sparkle, and they don't extend the text as they did in Stinky. Nor is the book design quite as clever: the varied type size may help storytellers achieve the proper inflection, but it isn't very attractive and seems to serve little purpose. There are still some good laughs to be had, however, as well as a few good lessons about good behavior, but don't expect quite the enthusiasm Stinky engendered or the "crossover" adult appeal. --Stephanie Zvirin