14 days until the release of my next book, THE ALMOST TERRIBLE PLAYDATE. Yesterday it was selected as one of Amazon's Best Books of the Month of February. Today, Booklist published it's review, using words like charming, valuable, entertaining, and playful to describe the book!
THE ALMOST TERRIBLE PLAYDATE Torrey, Richard (Author) , Torrey, Richard (Illustrator) Feb 2016. 40 p. Doubleday, hardcover, $16.99. (9780553510997).
In squiggly colored-pencil and ink drawings accentuated with charming thought bubbles, Torrey captures the sprite antics of a mismatched play date. The story opens with a seemingly easy question—“What do you want to play?”—and a boy and girl propose games (which are quite gendered) on facing pages, foreshadowing their ensuing drama. The boy and girl alternate suggesting and rejecting ideas, and as their ideas escalate in intensity, both of the kids, in their color-coded, scribbled thought bubbles, creatively imagine the destructions of the other’s idea, which imbues the conflict with wit and charm. “What if I’m a ballet instructor and you’re in my ballet school?” asks the girl, while the boy imagines himself frowning while wearing a tutu. The boy’s suggestion elicits a similar response from the girl, and so it continues until they wonder whether they can play together at all. Playing alone is not as much fun, however, and as the story progresses, they learn a valuable and entertaining lesson about compromise. A playful and accessible introduction to cooperation. — Annie Miller