Animals Home Alone

by Loes Riphagen (Illustrator)

Overview

Part picture book, part game, and all fun, Animals Home Alone, introduces readers to fifteen animals who begin to act in unusual ways when the humans are away,. In wordless pages, each animal finds a unique activity or bit of mischief to get into. At the book's conclusion, readers are asked questions about what the animals have done.

When a little girl and her father leave their house, the animals left behind start to take over. The cat immediately goes to the phone to call a friend and the fish leaves his bowl looking for a new place to live. Dogs routinely look for shoes to chew, but this dog is looking for shoes to wear! A bear climbs out of a painting on the wall and finds trouble when he turns the TV on. The elephant the little girl drew comes to life and starts to gather everything yellow he can. A pig gets hungry, a bird takes on irksome moths, a rabbit finds love, and cockroaches run wild in this imaginative book from an exciting young author.

A fun book for all that encourages children to spot and remember changes large and small, each re-reading of this book will yield new discoveries!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781934734551
Publisher:	Seven Footer Entertainment LLC
Publication date:	04/01/2011
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 10.30(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	4 Years

About the Author

Loes Riphagen grew up in a small farming village in the Netherlands. She earned a diploma in Illustration from the esteemed Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, where she now lives and works.

Editorial Reviews

In this near-wordless story, first published in the Netherlands, chaos erupts among household "pets" once the humans are out of sight: the dog tries on mismatched shoes, a bear steps out of a hanging picture, cockroaches splash toilet water on the cat, and a yellow elephant drawing comes to life to woo a stringy-haired bunny. When father and daughter reappear, there's a mad rush to restore order—mostly. Appended questions ("Why does the piggy have a stomachache?") encourage readers to trace how each event unfolds. Though the scenery never changes, the animals' mini-narratives and (sometimes inscrutable) behaviors should have kids flipping forward and back again and again. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

K-Gr 2—This wordless book is a playful romp that shows what happens when the humans are away. On the title page, a father and daughter walk out of their tidy home. A cat dozes on an easy chair, a goldfish swims in a bowl, and framed pictures of animals adorn the walls. On the following pages, creatures climb out of their frames, cages, and bowls. They chase one another, make messes, fall in love, swim in the toilet, and eat everything in sight. Suddenly, they see the family approach and scramble to get things more or less back to normal. The flyleaf asks readers a number of questions such as: "Why does the piggy have a stomachache?" Readers can trace individual stories through the pages. The little dramas will have children (and adults) flipping back and forth for more whimsical and hilarious details. Children will enjoy poring over the art alone, or laughing with friends.—Amelia Jenkins, Juneau Public Library, AK

School Library Journal

In this mostly wordless title, a bunch of animals get up to some mild mischief when the humans in the house go out, with all the shifting action taking place in one room—something akin to The Cat in the Hat meets Where's Waldo? The idea is to register the changes to the setting as the animals conduct their monkey business: the bear coming to life and crawling out of its picture frame, the bird zipping about after the toothy moth, a threesome of devilish cockroaches knocking over a jam jar and splashing toilet water on the cat (a sad folly on their part). Much of the effectiveness of the book comes from the stage that Riphagen has set; it's a room with blood-red walls, busy but not so much as to overwhelm someone looking for the changes from page to page, and painted in strangely translucent color as vivid as lollipops. The characters are good and quirky, somewhat primitively drawn with an emphasis on their noses, each with eyes like a halibut's. Riphagen wisely deploys a few red herrings; readers will be waiting for that little toy elephant to come to life or the lobster to launch itself from the wall, but no dice. In the end, the author/illustrator issues a memory quiz aimed at the youngest readers. In all, this should deliver the engagement goods for a number of readings. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews