Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Just Because by Mac Barnett - ADVISABLE

Just Because by Mac Barnett and Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault.  PICTURE BOOK. Candlewick, 2019. $18. 9780763696801

BUYING ADVISORY:  EL (K-3) -ADVISABLE

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE

Its time for bed and a little girl has a lot of questions, endless questions for her dad. He is obviously trying to leave but takes the time to make up wild answers to her questions. For example, Why do birds fly south for the winter? Answer: To fetch new leaves for the trees. Each answer is creative and completely made up. But his best answer is to the last question “Why do we have to sleep?”

I’m already a fan of Mac Barnett’s sense of humor. The answers to the child’s questions are just hilarious. The creativity is just fantastic, and I bet a teacher could make a really fun creative writing assignment having students answer questions that they have no idea the real answer to. Maybe they could then do a research project to find out the real answer afterwards. The illustrations are stylized like the 1950-60’s, so not my favorite, but it works.

Reviewer: Stephanie MLS & Author

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