Available:*
Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33607003299099 | Picture Books | SCHACHNER | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
From the bestselling creator of Skippyjon Jones , a heartwarming story about the importance of imagination and creativity.
Sarabella is always thinking-conjuring, daydreaming, and creating new worlds from her imagination. There is so much going on in her head that it can barely be contained. But there are times when daydreaming is decidedly not a good thing-like when you're supposed to be doing multiplication tables. Luckily, Sarabella has an understanding teacher and with his encouragement She comes up with her own idea to show everyone who she is.
Author Notes
Judith Byron Schachner was born in Waltham, Massachusetts on August 20, 1951. Talented at art from a young age, she graduated in 1973 from the Massachusetts College of Art with a BFA in illustration.
After designing greeting cards for companies including Hallmark and giving birth to two daughters, Schachner wrote and illustrated her first picture book, Willy and May, in 1995. She writes and illustrates the popular Skippyjon Jones series for children about a dynamic Siamese kitten.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Sarabella daydreams constantly but doesn't communicate her thoughts. Her parents, creative types themselves, don't share her teacher's concern that she needs to focus more in school. Her puppet-loving older sister suggests she "take deep breaths and squint" to facilitate concentration, but this just results in a dizzy spell and visit to the school nurse. Finally, a weekend assignment requiring students to draw their thoughts prompts the youngster to follow the advice of the beautiful whale living in her imagination: "To share it, you've/ just got to wear it." After much coloring, cutting, and pasting, she arrives at school wearing a hat containing "the most spectacular collection of doodles and daydreams." The lengthy text includes phrases like "Seeds of ideas" printed in grass and words such as "reason," "reflect," and "ponder" in a flower pot. The colorful illustrations, executed in acrylics, gouache, collage, and mixed media, depict Sarabella's daydreams in huge bubbles containing a cornucopia of objects. Her hat is so remarkable that it stretches across a spread. In humorous contrast, her cat appears repeatedly sporting the same thought: fish. This child has "a green thumb for thinking." Yet this is problematic in school where her teacher, though kind, repeatedly requests that she focus on her work instead of allowing her to learn in her own way. The scene in which she draws her thoughts reveals a distressed girl with "an upset tummy." -VERDICT While Sarabella's ideas, seen through Schachner's dazzling illustrations, are presented as wonderfully imaginative, Peter Reynolds's Happy Dreamer offers a much more exuberant dreamer and encouragement for readers to follow his example.-Marianne Saccardi, Children's Literature Consultant, Cambridge, MA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Punning on the plural of cerebellum, Schachner (the SkippyJon Jones series) introduces a girl who is at her happiest when she's alone with her thoughts. With her "feet on the ground and her head in the clouds," Sarabella is beloved by her passionately creative family, but her teacher, Mr. Fantozzi, hopes she'll find a way to focus, as well as share her thoughts. Inspired by a classroom assignment, Sarabella crafts a thinking cap made of paper, magazine clippings, stickers, and stamps, allowing her classmates to see the swirl of ideas in her head. Readers have much more access to Sarabella's thoughts thanks to Schachner's sprawling mixed-media collages, themselves a tangle of imagery and loosely formed associations: in one jam-packed thought balloon, lithographic images of sea turtles, sheep, and a cabbage jockey for space with hand-drawn ants, words in English and French, and a cartoon string bean. Mr. Fantozzi is a memorable force in Sarabella's life: he never shames her imaginative wanderings and instead celebrates her inquisitiveness. Readers, particularly introspective types, are sure to see the magic in Sarabella's perspective. Ages 5-8. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.