Excuses, Excuses

K-Gr 3—Irrepressible Neel vows to spend the week staying out of trouble and mending his bad behavior. However, every day presents a fantastic new situation that stretches his credibility with the adults around him. The story is told in bouncing nonsense verse with a loose narrative structured around the days of the week. For each one, Neel is confronted with an accusation. On Friday, "Did you make Aunty go away?/What did you do? What did you say?" And the youngster gives a detailed excuse as to why it wasn't his fault—in this case his simple question causes offense, "…So I asked her most politely,/'Where did your eyebrows go?/Did they slip away silently?/Or did they let you know?'" The poetry is good fun, though at times it reads rather awkwardly to American ears. The illustrations, black-and-white photographs of a boy digitally manipulated with vibrant color, are even more whimsical and full of fanciful elements than the text. At times, the relationship between the illustration and the verse is unclear, but overall this is fun nonsense poetry.—Anna Haase Krueger, Antigo Public Library, WI