Look Out, Jeremy Bean! - OWTK Kid's Book Review

From acclaimed children's author Alice Schertle and illustrator David Slonim (He Came With The Couch) comes a new chapter book filling the void of such volumes for the pre-reader, 4-7 age group.

Look Out, Jeremy Bean! is a collection of 3 loosely tied together stories, each consisting of 4-6 unnumbered chapters. It's a quick, but highly enjoyable book to read aloud to kindergartners and younger children who've demonstrated the ability to take pleasure in books that are more word-heavy, with minimal (less than 1 per page) accompanying illustrations.

Throughout the 3 stories, we learn of Jeremy's multiple problems and the way he uses creativity and a very active imagination to solve 'em all. Be it dust bunnies under his bed, a lack of a green attire on St. Patty's Day or his quest to start a unique personal collection, Jeremy Bean has a knack for finding humorous and inventive ways to make the best of any situation.

The Bear (age 5 1/4) loved our first read of Look Out, Jeremy Bean! She took pleasure most of all in Jeremy's misunderstanding of the term dust bunny and his zany ideas for luring and trapping the indoor hares. She also seemed to cherish the sentimentality of the time Jeremy spent in the kitchen talking with his Grandfather while baking and eating chocolate chip cookies. Both she and I liked that, just as in Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, it was the Grandpop doing the baking. We as a family enjoy any situation that bends the usual gender stereotypes, especially those taking place in a kitchen (the Bear sees me doing all the cooking & baking yet virtually every ad or toy catalogue that passes in front of her eyes shows only females navigating their way around kitchens).

Look Out, Jeremy Bean! bridges the gap nicely between children's books that rely heavily on pictures to move characters through the plot and more advanced kid's lit completely devoid of illustrations. It's the perfect book for Pre-K to 2nd grade children because while it's a fully developed story (3 of them actually) there are no subplots, flashback sequences or other undercurrents to cause confusion in the mind of a young reader.