There's a Snake in My School! by David Walliams and Tony Ross
| There's a Snake in My School! by David Walliams and Tony Ross | |
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| Category: For Sharing | |
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Reviewer: Z J Cookson
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| Summary: A funny and fast-moving story full of slightly strange and far-fetched ideas where anything is possible and fantasy merges into reality. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 32 | Date: October 2016 |
| Publisher: Harper Collins Children's Books | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0008172701 | |
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Miranda loves to be different so no one is really surprised when she arrives at school on Bring-your-pet-to-school Day riding on the back of an enormous slithery python called Penelope. But they are a bit frightened. After all, pythons EAT people. Miranda, however, soon convinces her classmates that Penelope is both friendly and lots of fun to play with. It looks like it's going to be the best day of school EVER. But that's before Miss Bloat, the headmistress, intervenes and locks up all the pets. Luckily Penelope has a special talent that will save the day.
As you would expect from a book from David Walliams, this is a story full of slightly strange and far-fetched ideas where anything is possible and fantasy merges into reality. Funny and fast-moving, kids will love it. Younger children will enjoy having the story read to them while those who can read for themselves will giggle as they read Miranda and Penelope's escapades for themselves.
Children will also adore the stylised and vibrant illustrations by Tony Ross. While simple in appearance, it is obvious a lot of thought has been put into both the cartoon-style characters and their positioning, particularly where the text is separated out across the page in order to accompany the small humorous pictures. This has the potential to be confusing if done badly but in this case the layout is perfect. It will also allow children who can't yet read to re-tell the story by using the pictures as a visual aid.
The text and the pictures are a perfect complement to each other with Tony Ross's illustrations adding another level to David Walliams mad-cap ideas. My personal favourites are the picture of the fat cat napping (flat on his back in a wheelbarrow with the cat's legs sticking up in the air), the tortoise making a rather slooooooooow run for it (in the picture he looks truly terrified), and Penelope the snake sitting in the headmistress's chair (having acquired the headmistress's distinctive glasses and – by the looks of it - borrowed her bright red lipstick!) There is only one negative about this book and that relates to the production. I'm really not a fan of flimsy paper dust covers for books for this age range but sadly this appears to be a growing trend.
And in a final little detail, I totally love the author and illustrator pictures of David Walliams and Tony Ross on the inside cover with their respective pets (David's dog, Bert, and Tony's two cats – Stanley and Dorothy). It's a wonderful touch that children are likely to adore.
If you enjoyed this, you really should check out the other pictures books by this talented pair. The Bookbag loved both The Bear Who Went Boo and The Slightly Annoying Elephant.
We've also seen an edition which contained an audio CD. Our reviewer, Ruth Ng said:
In the audio CD the story is read, of course, by David Walliams. I confess, I was a little disappointed as I'd expected it to be wackier than it was! Instead he seems to read the story in a rather calm and measured way, very slowly and carefully pronouncing every word. This does mean that children who are reading themselves can easily follow the story along as they listen, without getting lost. Still, the enjoyment came for me with the introduction of the mean headmistress, as he then lapsed into a funny character voice. I almost breathed a sigh of relief that finally there was a little action in his voice! There are sound effects as he reads, and a little music, but all things considered I feel that actually, I do a far better job of reading this out loud than he does!
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You can read more book reviews or buy There's a Snake in My School! by David Walliams and Tony Ross at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy There's a Snake in My School! by David Walliams and Tony Ross at Amazon.com.
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