Skippyjon Jones Class Action
By Judy Schachner
2011
Skippyjon Jones Class Action, by Judy Schachner, tells the incredibly imaginative tale of a Siamese kitten with abnormally large ears who goes to school for a day with his dog friends and confronts a bully whom they are all afraid of.
This may be the most bizarre picture book I have ever encountered, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw that it is part of a New York Times Bestselling Series! Although I have no idea what inspired the author to create a work like this, its quirkiness is wonderful for stretching the minds of young readers. In fact, the whole book sounds like a story that a child might use his imagination to tell, so it really made me think back to the strange imagination games I used to play as a child.
Both the text and illustrations are full of details and references that make it exciting but can also be difficult for young children to understand on their own. For example, once Skippyjon boards the bus to school with the other dogs, they describe the school bully to him, “ ‘Because he is a perro mezquino,’ declared Don Diego, ‘who barrenas around the escuela in a tazalita.’ ‘He spins around the school in a tiny teacup?’ exclaimed the kitty boy in shock.” The integration of Spanish words throughout this text is a very cool aspect of the book, but we can’t get caught up trying to understand them or we’ll lose the flow of the text. This bilingual aspect (even trilingual when a little French appears later) would be very interesting to observe in a class read-aloud with ESL students; but for English-only speakers, a teacher might have to encourage them just to go with the flow of the interesting words without worrying too much about their meaning.
Schachner also includes cultural references, such as a Boston Red Sox sticker randomly posted on the wall of Skippyjon’s room, and when Poquito Tito refers to the bully as a “woolly bully” because he wears a wool sweater. Though children may not pick up on these references, they are certainly entertaining for adults. When Skippyjon and the puppies are in art class with Mrs. Houndler, we see the paintings “The Howl” and “The Mona Fleasa” in the background, knocking on the Munch and da Vinci classics.
The author adds to the quirkyness of the book by changing font and size often, including silly songs in italics, using bizarre text placement and patterns, and adding “–ito” as a suffix to English words in attempts to make them sound more Spanish.
Skippyjon and his friends encounter the bully bouncing around the school in his teacup, which crashes in the cafeteria; but they realize that he is actually a tiny pup who grumbles and growls because he is just hungry! Skippyjon offers the little pup his banana and all is well. The end of the book surprised me immensely: we realize that this whole time, Skippyjon has actually been living this entire adventure to dog school in his closet!
This book even comes with a unique bonus CD of the story, read by the author. She also offers a free “bookcast” online for anyone to access at: http://readinginaction.org/bookcasts/skippyjon-jones-class-action
Wow! I was not expecting that ending at ALL. The book sounds fascinating in addition to the ending though, and I'd love to take a look at some of the other books in the series to see if they end with twists too (or even if they're all about Skippyjon-Jones' imagination).
ReplyDeleteI think you're right about the use of Spanish and French -- it does seem a little harder for English-only speakers to read or listen to. I almost wonder though, in this age of 'Dora the Explorer,' if younger children would understand more of those words then I might. Maybe not, but it would be interesting to see.