Overview

Who says little brothers canat do anything? Poor Ben. Heas the little one - the youngest and smallest. His sister Robin is a big kid in grade five; his brother Joe is a big kid in grade two. Benas just a little kid in preschool. He canat swim, he canat use chopsticks, he canat even see out the car window. And worst of all, today is report card day. More than anything, Ben wants to bring home a report like Robinas and Joeas. But there are no report cards in preschool. Guess what? Ben is about to discover that sometimes there are report cards - at home, written by older siblings! Heas about to get his very own report, grading him on all the activities that little brothers do best. Beloved childrenas author Sarah Ellis has followed up her acclaimed picture book debut, Next Stop! (2000) with this irresistible tale of siblings who, every once in a while, remember what it was like to be the little one. Kim La Faveas always-empathetic characters inhabit a childas world with just the right touch of humor and joy. A perfect book for preschoolers, younger siblings and beginner readers.

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9781550419399

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The trouble with Ben is that he isn't big. He's the youngest child in the family and, unlike his siblings Robin and Joe, he doesn't get a report card -- he doesn't even have subjects in the nursery school he goes to. At the swimming pool, Robin does cannonballs. Joe does the dog paddle. Ben can't swim. From the back seat of the car, Robin sees a dumptruck and Joe sees a man walking four dogs, but Ben is too small to see anything. So it goes until Robin and Joe, in an imaginative ploy, help their baby brother feel big and totally cool. - The Globe and Mail In Big Ben, as she did in her first picture book, Next Stop! Ellis has taken a child's point of view to create a perfect small story based on a common experience (in this case, that of being the baby of the family.) The text of Ellis' second picture book, in its theme as well as in its large print format and short sentences, is particularly appropriate for pre-schoolers, younger siblings and beginning readers. Kim LaFave, that gifted and versatile artist whose illustrations for Amos's Sweater won him three awards in 1989, has filled each page with bold, bright-coloured drawings of the characters and their world in Big Ben. Text and illustrations complement each other perfectly and are certain to elicit sympathetic chuckles from readers of all ages. Elementary school librarians will want to add this appealing book to their collection of easy-to-read picture books. Highly recommended. - CM Magazine This delightful book speaks to the needs and desires of the youngest child in every family. Importantly, the solution to Ben's problem comes not from the grown-ups but from the older siblings who are the source of Ben's feelings ofinferiority. These smart children - minor miracles of sensitivity and resourcefulness - are Ben's role models and therefore dominate the story. LaFave's bright illustrations, full of movement and comforting curves, reinforce Ellis's rhythmic text perfectly. We see the fridge plastered with report cards from Ben's wistful point of view. In the first half of the book, the two older children are pictured together on one side of the page, while Ben is alone on the other. Only when they give Ben his report card are all three drawn together, after which Ben is pictured happily attending to his subjects alone. At the end a parent appears just long enough to bestow the final affectionate compliment: You are a big goof. - Quill and Quire, starred review Vancouver's Sarah Ellis riffs on Pat Hutchins's Titch: youngest child Ben lives in the shadow of his two older siblings, until - brought to life by Kim LaFave's vibrant illustrations - Ben's tentative self-confidence blossoms, as his brother and sister make it all work out. - Georgia Straight

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