Sister team Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel are the co-authors of many acclaimed picture books, including the popular Cook-A-Doodle-Doo!, The Great Fuzz Frenzy, and the recent Help Me, Mr. Mutt, winner of the 2010 Texas Bluebonnet Award. Janet lives in Boulder, Colorado, and Susan lives in Fort Worth, Texas. You can visit them on the web at www.janetstevens.com and www.susanstevenscrummel.com
The Little Red Pen
Hardcover
(First Edition)
$17.99
- ISBN-13: 9780152064327
- Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Publication date: 04/18/2011
- Edition description: First Edition
- Pages: 56
- Sales rank: 93,247
- Product dimensions: 9.10(w) x 11.60(h) x 0.50(d)
- Lexile: AD300L (what's this?)
- Age Range: 6 - 9 Years
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Poor Little Red Pen! She can't possibly correct a mountain of homework all by herself. Who will help her? "Not I!" says Stapler. "Not I!" says Eraser. "¡Yo no!" says Pushpin, AKA Señorita Chincheta. But when the Little Red Pen tumbles in exhaustion into the Pit of No Return (the trash!), her fellow school supplies must get themselves out of the desk drawer and work together to rescue her. Trouble is, their plan depends on Tank, the rotund class hamster, who's not inclined to cooperate. Will the Little Red Pen be lost forever?
There's no lack of trial and error, hilarious chaos, and creative problem-solving in this mission! Kids—and adults—will never see their school supplies in quite the same way again.
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Publishers Weekly
Initially echoing the plot of "The Little Red Hen," sisters and longtime collaborators Stevens and Crummel introduce a bespectacled, schoolmarmish red pen with a stack of papers to grade. Her desk-drawer friends, however, refuse to help, even when the Little Red Pen insists, "If these papers aren't graded, the students won't learn.... The sky might fall. It might be the end of the world!" When the pen, exhausted from grading, falls into the wastebasket—aka "The Pit of No Return"—her friends must rally to rescue her. Stevens's full-bleed illustrations caricature the office supplies in a style reminiscent of Sir John Tenniel, from a bucktoothed Stapler and fuzzy-haired Highlighter to a tiny pushpin, Señorita Chincheta, who makes up for her small size with her emphatic bilingual declarations. But while the story is often verbally clever, with many humorous individual scenes (Stapler's idea of correcting papers is stapling all over the offending paragraph), the convoluted plot and numerous speaking characters (six desk-drawer friends, plus a ruler, yardstick, paperclip box, and a lethargic hamster) make the story as a whole feel overlong and overdone. Ages 6–9. (Apr.)From the Publisher
"A rollicking read-aloud, this is a book that begs to be turned into a class play, readers theater, or puppet show."—The Horn Book
"Stevens's enchanting, well-imagined, dimensional cartoon-style drawings of the office-supply characters imbue each one with a distinct personality to match their dialogic voices....This book is recommended for any classroom and should find a home in most libraries."—School Library Journal
"Will keep kids engaged, while both words and pictures create distinct, hilarious, highly animated characters from everyday objects."—Booklist
"The authors work in lots of clever wordplay that will appeal to adult readers....Stevens’ delightfully expressive desk supplies were created with paint, ink and plenty of real school supplies. Without a doubt, she has captured their true personalities."—Kirkus Reviews
Children's Literature - Denise Hartzler
Taking the theme of The Little Red Hen folktale, The Little Red Pen needs to correct a mountain of homework. If the work does not get done the students will not learn from their mistakes and the world will ultimately come to an end. Who will help Little Red Pen? "Not I" says Stapler, Eraser, Pushpin, Highlighter or Pencil. Little Red Pen goes to work by herself. But she soon tires and tumbles with exhaustion into the "Pit of No Return" (also known as the trash). Panic among the school supplies sets in and they need a plan to correct the homework or else the world will come to an end. They realize that they need The Little Red Pen to help correct all the homework. Their rescue plans relies on Tank, the classroom's over-sized lazy hamster. Will they be able to save Little Red Pen? The story is engaging with lots of humor and mishaps along the way. As with most picture books, the age range is 4 to 8 but this book has dialog from seven characters and is recommended for first grade and up; younger audiences will have a hard time following the dialog. Reviewer: Denise HartzlerSchool Library Journal
Gr 2–4—In a schoolroom take on this classic tale of cooperation, the teacher's tools pool their energies to solve a problem. The Little Red Pen has fallen into the trash, exhausted after working alone long into the night. The inhabitants of the desk drawer—stapler, pushpin, scissors, highlighter, eraser, pencil, paper clips—each have a lame reason for not helping the pen, but then they realize the error of their ways: if the papers don't get graded, it will be "the end of the world." The rescue isn't easy, but using a little ingenuity and a finally wide-awake classroom hamster, the world doesn't end, the papers get graded, and the friends vow their loyalty for the future. Stevens's enchanting, well-imagined, dimensional cartoon-style drawings of the office-supply characters imbue each one with a distinct personality to match their dialogic voices. That dialogue appears in character-specific fonts against fully illustrated backgrounds and gives the story a cinematic feel. Adults will need Jim Dale's range of voices for a memorable read-aloud, but the ubiquity of graphic novels and resurgence of comics for all age groups assures that young readers will have no trouble following the action. Extend a science lesson on pulleys and levers; stop and start the reading for a lesson on prediction; and pull out your six-traits writing workbooks so students can describe the characters or action. This book is recommended for any classroom and should find a home in most libraries.—Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NCKirkus Reviews
Obviously inspired by "The Little Red Hen," this goes beyond the foundation tale's basic moral about work ethic to explore problem solving, teamwork and doing one's best. Nighttime at school brings the Little Red Pen out of the drawer to correct papers, usually aided by other common school supplies. But not this time. Too afraid of being broken, worn out, dull, lost or, worst of all, put in the "Pit of No Return" (aka trash), they hide in the drawer despite the Little Red Pen's insistence that the world will end if the papers do not get corrected. But even with her drive she cannot do it all herself—her efforts send her to the Pit. It takes the ingenuity and cooperation of every desk supply to accomplish her rescue and to get all the papers graded, thereby saving the world. The authors work in lots of clever wordplay that will appeal to adult readers, as will the spicy character of Chincheta, the Mexican pushpin. Stevens' delightfully expressive desk supplies were created with paint, ink and plenty of real school supplies. Without a doubt, she has captured their true personalities: the buck-toothed stapler, bespectacled scissors and rather empty-headed eraser. Teachers will certainly find themselves wishing for their own arsenal of supplies to help them with their grading, and students may take a second glance at that innocuous-looking red pen on the teacher's desk. (Picture book. 5-8)