From Bogey Bear
While the title of this book is "Do Not Open This Book", you will be
glad you did and so will all of the children you share this book with.
The author has written this story to be a conversation with the reader,
so this is a great way to get started sharing picture books with
children, letting them help you be the storyteller. Its about a
fairly grumpy pig, but he looks so silly and actually has a soft spot in
his heart as you get to know him.
About the Book
"Excuse me, but who do you think you are, opening this book when the
cover clearly says, DO NOT OPEN THIS BOOK? The reason you weren't
supposed to open this book is because it is not yet written!...You think
it's easy to put words together? Hah! Now go away--I need time to
think." So begins Pig's valiant attempt to pen his masterpiece.
But he is constantly interrupted by the reader who is seduced at every turn into foiling his efforts ("please go away" "please do not turn the page")--until at last we reach the final page & discover that together, Pig & the reader have indeed created a book.
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 4-After admonishing youngsters for ignoring the
volume's title, a peevish pig explains that the book is not yet written,
indicating a blank page and a hodgepodge of words printed on rectangle
banners. Using numerous exclamation points, the author repeatedly-and
rudely-tells everyone to get lost so that he can get to work. Eventually
realizing that the spectators won't budge, the pig demands silence,
climbs a ladder, and carefully glues and nails words to the wall,
forming the beginning of a story.
Unfortunately, the next page-turn blows the words around and when they settle down, they now describe a ferocious mouse that appears on the scene. And so it goes, until the exasperated porker pens an insulting tale about a giant pest, telling readers to say their names whenever there's a blank in the narrative. Then the pig declares the book completed, heads to bed, and dreams about literary accolades.
The loose-lined, messy-looking cartoons in glossy, bold colors suit the text's truculent tone. Comical details include boxes of words (labeled verbs, animals, etc.) and a spider and fly that assist and poke fun at their friend. Although the story is a bit monotone and the humor stretches thin, this offering might make a lighthearted starting point for discussions of creativity and the writing process
Joy Fleishhacker, School Library JournalCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
K-Gr. 3. In this playful send-up of the writing process, the illusion of
trespassing boundaries is a big part of the fun. Recriminations ("Are
you always so rude?") begin on the endpapers and continue as children
penetrate deeper into what a pig character identifies as his own,
in-progress book.
Turning the pages appears to wreak havoc on the narrative within, as words shake loose; form new, unintended sentences; and enrage the frustrated auteur--until he discovers that the unwanted intrusions have, in the circular fashion so beloved of postmodernism, created the very story he had struggled to produce.
Along with hand lettering Muntean's text, LeMaitre contributes bright, comics-style pictures that clarify the occasionally dizzying concepts (the words of the story-within-the-story, for instance, are represented on individual placards, making the constant reconfigurations easy to follow). Similarities to titles such as James Stevenson's Don't Make Me Laugh (2003) are obvious, but children will be no less enraptured by the irreverent, interactive premise and will emerge with a fresh understanding of the powerful qualities of words.
Jennifer Mattson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
About the Author
Michaela Muntean is the author of DO NOT OPEN THIS BOOK. She lives in
Shelter Island, New York, with her husband.
About the Illustrator
Pascal Lemaitre illustrated Toni and Slade Morrison's bestselling Who's
Got Game?: Three Fables, as well as many other books for children. He
and his family divide their time between Brussels, Belgium, where he
teaches illustration, and Brooklyn, New York.