________________ CM . . . . Volume XVI Number 23. . . .February 19, 2010

cover

My Think-a-ma-Jink.

Dave Whamond.
Toronto, ON: Owlkids Books, 2009.
32 pp., hardcover, $17.95.
ISBN 978-1-897349-66-3.

Preschool-grade 2 / Ages 4-7.

Review by Alison Mews.

**** /4

   

excerpt:

...my Think-a-ma-Jink got knocked into the air...

...and smashed into a million bajillion pieces!

This couldn't be happening!

Not the Think-a-ma-Jink!

What about my adventures?

What should I do?

I had to think!

 

Jack's sixth birthday is filled with boring, predictable presents until the final one from an unknown and mysterious uncle. This present is equally mysterious - and the only instructions are to "Relax, open your mind, and repeat the words: Think, think, think-a-ma-jink, hulla-ba-loo, razza-ma-doo..." So begins Jack's adventures as he and his little sister, Marie, use the Think-a-ma-jink to enter the unexplored world of their imaginations. When the device is broken, Jack is devastated until he discovers he doesn't need it to access his own imagination.

internal art     Dave Whamond, a successful cartoonist, has turned his considerable skills to visualizing the fantastic landscape of a child's mind. He creates zany, energetic images in vibrant colours and fills them with humour appropriate both for children and the adults reading to them. For instance, when Marie turns Jack into a smelly Princess Stinkerbell, he responds by changing her into a Scottish Gargyle (a stone gargoyle covered in an argyle pattern). Carefully designed with attention to size and placement of the pictures and the variation in font size, this works well as a read-aloud for individual and group storytime. An entertaining promotion for the power of creative play.

Highly Recommended.

Alison Mews is the librarian of the Curriculum Materials Centre at the Faculty of Education, Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, NL.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Copyright © the Manitoba Library Association. Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.
Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364
Hosted by the University of Manitoba.
 

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