My Mom and Dad Make Me Laugh (Math Together) - Softcover

PreSchool-Grade 2-What a zany life young Simon lives! A quiet dresser himself, he's surrounded by the dots his mother loves and the stripes his father favors. Winter or summer, indoors or out, on his parents' clothing, the floors, the walls, and everywhere in between, brightly colored dots and stripes are Simon's lot. When the family goes to a safari park one weekend, mom extols the leopards while dad praises the zebras. But Simon, dressed in a gray shirt and pants, likes the elephants best of all. And, in a surprising twist on the last page, children discover why. The text, which has a pleasant, rhythmic quality, is simple and repetitive enough for beginning readers. Sharratt's cartoon-style crayon drawings perfectly suit the child narrator's tone, and are a delight to pore over. Youngsters will love discovering the myriad boldly colored, dotted, and striped objects, and there are plenty of visual jokes for adults as well. The large double-page spreads make the book a suitable story-hour choice. Pair this humorous tale with Tana Hoban's Dots, Spots, Speckles, and Stripes (Greenwillow, 1987).
Marianne Saccardi, Whitby School American Montessori Center, Greenwich, CT
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

It's stripes vs. dots in this eye-boggling feast of extroverted colors and shapes. Simon, who stands out, ironically, because he wears that drabbest of hues, gray, observes that his mother loves "spots in winter, and spots in summer," while his father prefers "stripes on weekdays, and stripes on weekends." Accordingly, the rooms in their house feature alarming contrasts of polka dots and both vertical and horizontal lines. Simon's monotone wardrobe looks out of place--in such a household, why hasn't he developed a distinctive style? The answer is soon in coming. On a trip to the safari park, his mom, predictably, praises the leopards and his dad admires the zebras, while the narrator himself can't get enough of the elephants. At home, it turns out, Simon's room is full of elephant toys and knickknacks, and a glance back through the previous pages reveals that subtle elephant motifs have been planted all along. Sharratt ( Snazzy Aunties ) favors wild color combinations and a deliberate, hard-edged drawing style, and he renders every spread busy with patterns. If there's a quibble, it's with the title, which doesn't adequately evoke the book's contents. Ages 3-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.