Telephone

Starred review from July 21, 2014
Barnett (Extra Yarn) and Corace (I Hatched!) prove delightful collaborators as they inject new fizz into an old parlor game. On a telephone wire above a street lined with houses, a maternal-looking pigeon turns to a cardinal holding a baseball bat. “Tell Peter: Fly home for dinner,” she says. A page turn provides a comic pause as the cardinal filters what it’s heard through its love of baseball. “Tell Peter: Hit pop flies and homers,” the cardinal whispers to the goose on the wire next to him. The goose, wearing aviator’s goggles, has its own set of mental filters (“Tell Peter: Prop planes are for fliers”), and the fun continues down the wire. The pale blue sky and mounds of white clouds behind the birds lend a spacious, desultory air to the proceedings, yet the concentrated areas of texture and pattern where the birds interact are crammed with visual interest. The idea that one’s own passions affect the way one engages with the world is a subtle concept, but it’s presented with verve and humor. Ages 4–8. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House.

August 15, 2014
Barnett and Corace set up an absurdist version of the old "pass it on" game of Telephone, siting it quite literally-along a line of birds on a wire. An aproned pigeon with a steaming deep-dish pie tells a baseball bat-toting young cardinal: "Tell Peter: Fly home for dinner." The cardinal translates the message to a goose in a pilot's cap and goggles: "Tell Peter: Hit pop flies and homers." The goose tells a feather-dusting ostrich in a French maid's get-up, "Tell Peter: Prop planes are for fliers." The maid interprets, "Tell Peter: Put your wet socks in the dryer." And so it goes, with seven more birds relaying the message with new twists that reflect their respective avocations, from rock star to firefighter. That seventh fowl, a certifiably paranoid chicken, conveys to an unruffled owl a message that wildly mixes up all of the previous ones: "Tell Peter: There's a giant monster lobster named Homer! / He smells like socks and he breathes red fire! / ...and he's coming to this wire! / Tell Peter to fly! / ...He's too young to be / somebody's dinner!" Corace cleverly outfits her mixed-media birds with accoutrements including an electric guitar, cameras, books and-for Peter and his baseball teammates-bubble gum. The sage, bookish owl gets the message right, and Peter, ostensibly, his dinner.Silly fun! (Pass it on.) (Picture book. 4-7)

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September 1, 2014

K-Gr 3-Barnett offers an inspired take on the game of Telephone, where a simple sentence is twisted and confused as it passes from person to person. In this case, a mismatched flock of birds perched on a wire (a telephone wire, in fact) are responsible for passing a message from a mother pigeon to her son. Each bird has a unique interest that influences its version of the original message, "Tell Peter: Fly home for dinner," and guessing each bird's hobby becomes part of the fun of reading the book. The details in the boldly colored illustrations perfectly illuminate the avian personalities, from sweat beads on the nervous turkey, who cries, "Tell Peter: I'm too high up on this wire!" to the pocket square worn by the calm, wise owl, who manages to pass on the instructions accurately. Simple, silly text is kid-friendly and great for read-alouds, while spreads showing the whole line of birds and the houses below will hold any child's attention. Barnett has created another unique, clever book that young readers will love.-Marian McLeod, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich, CT

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2014
Preschool-G Peter Pigeon's mom wants him to come home for dinner, so she tells a little bird, Tell Peter: Fly home for dinner. That little bird, who's wielding a baseball bat, tells a bigger bird, Tell Peter: Hit pop flies and homers. And so the message grows more convoluted through a long line of birds until it snowballs into something over the top and silly. At last, though, a wise old owl calmly delivers the original message to Peter, who had been playing ball with his other bird friends. Barnett's simply told, slapstick story of miscommunication is well matched by Corace's big, bold watercolor illustrations of wacky anthropomorphized birds. Each two-page spread subtly reveals hints for how each bird distorts the message, and the opening and closing pictures of the birds on a telephone wire quietly add to the joke. With short lines and page-filling, laugh-out-loud images, this would be a great pick for a group read-aloud.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2015
A pigeon, one of an unusual assortment of birds on a telephone wire, directs a cardinal to "tell Peter: Fly home for dinner." A wacky game of telephone ensues; fortunately, Owl interprets the (humorously) long and exaggerated message correctly and points Peter in the right direction. Bright, elegant art depicts amusing details that play up the silliness of each new message iteration.

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

November 1, 2014
The opening, wordless spread shows a neighborhood with cozy homes, children at play, and happy pets, while above it all a telephone wire hosts an unusual assortment of birds, shown as blobby silhouettes. The page-turn zooms in to show a scene on the wire: an aproned pigeon is directing a young cardinal holding a baseball bat to "tell Peter: Fly home for dinner." A wacky game of telephone -- on the telephone wire -- ensues, as a goose in an aviator helmet, a comic book-reading duck, an open-mouthed pelican, and others pass along changed versions of the message ("Lobsters are good hidersMy monster truck has big tiresSomething smells like fire!"). By the time the message gets to Owl, it has become (humorously) long and exaggerated: "There's a giant monster lobster named Homer! He smells like socks and he breathes red fire! His eyes blaze like stars and he rides a crocodile that flies and he's coming to this wire! Tell Peter to fly! Fly far far away! He's too young to be somebody's dinner!" Fortunately, Owl manages to interpret the message correctly and points Peter in the right direction -- home for dinner -- as the sun sets on the back endpapers. Bright and elegant art done in watercolor, ink, gouache, and pencil depicts amusing details that play up the silliness of each new message iteration, but with plenty of white space to keep it all perfectly clear for readers and listeners. julie roach

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)