School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3-This amusing tale in rhyme plays on a familiar fear of having an undesirable creature lost in the house. When Sid comes home with a snake that he wants to keep as a pet, Ma expresses strong reservations, but his parents decide to sleep on the decision. At breakfast the next morning, the boy announces that Jake is nowhere to be found, setting off an easily imagined level of hysteria. A hilarious hullabaloo ensues as everyone fears Jake's slithery presence and the family goes to the extreme of camping outside until the animal's whereabouts can be determined. Only Sid, and, to a lesser extent, Pa, are concerned for the reptile's safety. All's well that ends well when the snake is discovered in the most ironic of spots. Wacky, off-kilter illustrations serve this humorous tale well. From the youngest to the oldest, all of the relatives are portrayed with the same corkscrew curls done up in different styles. Levity and good fun give this story broad appeal.-Rosalyn Pierini, San Luis Obispo City-County Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The star of this mildly diverting rhyming tale gives its young human owner the slip almost as soon as it arrives in the house. Comic chaos and paranoia quickly set in, as the entire family simultaneously searches for and seeks to avoid the snake named Jake: "Grandmother fainted while stirring the stew,/ For one of the noodles looked like-you know who," writes Provencher (Mouse Cleaning). Carter (The Invisible Day) renders her daily-life-run-amok situations in translucent washes of color, but the combination of exaggeration and delicacy does not quite coalesce. Still, the illustrator wins points for gamely playing up each vignette's slapstick quotient for all it's worth-in one scene, a terrified Aunt Annie flies down the stairs and almost off the page, her eyes bugged and every molar in her gaping mouth delineated. Just when things look darkest for Jake ("I hear they exterminate snakes," says Aunt Annie as she departs indignantly), Pa proposes that the family "camp out till we find where the danged thing is hid./ .../ We'll sleep where he ain't till we know where he is." Even youngest readers will anticipate that this strategy will have the opposite outcome, but they'll get a giggle from Jake's reappearance all the same. Ages 4-up. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
