A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever
* “Frazee (Roller Coaster) salutes grandparents and slyly notes children’’s diversions in this breezy tale of “the best week ever.” After Eamon enrolls in nature camp, he spends nights with his grandparents, Bill and Pam, at their beach cottage. Eamon’’s friend James joins the sleepover, and although the text describes James as “very sad” when his mother drives away, a cartoon shows him exuberantly waving “Bye!” Humorous contradictions arise between the hand-lettered account (”Bill handed them each a pair of binoculars and a list of birds to look for. On the way home, the boys reported their findings”) and voice-bubble exchanges between the boys (Eamon, training the lenses on James: “His freckles are huge.” James: “Yeah, and his tongue is gross”). Bill tries to interest the boys in a museum exhibit on penguins; the inseparable friends (”To save time, Bill began calling them Jamon”) show no enthusiasm yet energetically build “penguins” from mussel shells. Frazee’’s narrative resembles a tongue-in-cheek travel journal, with plenty of enticing pencil and gouache illustrations of the characters knocking about the shoreline. Like The Hello Goodbye Window, Frazee’’s story celebrates casual extended-family affection, with a knowing wink at the friends” dismissal of their elders” best-laid plans.” (starred review) (Publishers Weekly 20080301)
* “Frazee’s hilarious round-headed cartoons romp across the page in snort-inducing counterpoint, abetted by the occasional speech balloon. . . . The genius here is not that the boys finally get outside in the end; it’s that their joy in being together is celebrated equally whether they’re annihilating each other in a video game or building a replica of Antarctica on Bill and Pam’s dock. As respectful of kid sensibilities and priorities as it’s possible for an adult to achieve.” (starred review) (Kirkus Reviews 20080301)
* “Summer can seem a long time away during the colder portions of the year, and summer books can hold a special promise and poignancy in the long run-up until the months of freedom. Truly stellar summer books, such as Lynne Rae Perkins’ Pictures from Our Vacation can evoke the weirdness and unexpected magic of summer’s free-form experiences even in the darkest season. Add in some snarky and boisterous grade-school humor, and you’ve got A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever. . . . This sweetly captures the pleasures of youthful time-wasting in the company of your best friend with a keen understanding that those pleasures are best when they’re unsentimental. The result is just realistic enough to be perfect, a grade-schooler’s idyllic summer with limited demands for learning and bettering and a whole lot of reveling in kid priorities. A wonderful late-winter reminder that summer is coming, this will cheer up audiences by encouraging them to reflect on glorious summers past and even more glorious summers to anticipate.” (starred review) (The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books )
* “Frazee brings out the typical energy of a couple of boys who may scoff at nature and seem to prefer watching TV, but it is through her artful illustrations that readers catch glimpses of just how savvy and creative these kids can be. . . . This intergenerational story will elicit howls of laughter and requests for repeated readings.” (starred review) (School Library Journal )
User Ratings and Reviews
1 Star What is happening to our children’s books?
I am completely appalled that this book won the 2009 Caldecott Award. Not only is it an unoriginal and drab story but to me, this represents everything that is wrong with American culture. Children are shaped by the things they read and see from a very young age, this book is not a positive influence. It encourages gluttony and mindless activity while discouraging acquisition of important knowledge (nature camp).
5 Stars A Really Good Book
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever
Is a good book and is very funny. It amuses people all ages. My whole class laughed at it. The two boys are named James and Eamon and go to Eamon’s grand parents.
They want to stay at their house eat junk food and play video games, but Bill, James grandfather loves nature most of all in cold places with penguins so sends them to camp. In the book you never actually see them at camp, but only going to camp.
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever
is full of humor and is definitely worth getting.
5 Stars A strong mCaldecott contender
Marla Frazze’s best picture book to date. A seamless blend of pictures and text. Laugh out loud funny and a great choice for ages 4-10. When you read the text, keep in mind that Frazee hand wrote every word in the book.
5 Stars Delightful and Timeless
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever is as merry and timeless as Robert McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal. James and Eamon, best friends, go to visit Eamon’s grandparents, Bill and Pam, at the beach for a week during the summer. During the day, Bill has the boys attend nature camp as he loves everything to do with nature, especially cold places with penguins. The boys don’t exactly love camp. As a matter of fact, you never actually see the boys at camp throughout the story. You only see Bill driving them to and from camp with the boys making sarcastic comments in the backseat (see the endpapers for some pictures of the boys at camp). James and Eamon would much rather stay at Bill and Pam’s playing video games, eating ice cream icebergs and banana waffles, and turning their blow-up mattress into a trampoline. In other words, they don’t want to do much of anything. Heck, they don’t even want to change their shorts throughout the week. For James and Eamon, the best week ever consists of an air mattress in the downstairs bedroom, fun food, and the company of a best friend. It’s just that simple. Now, where do I sign up for a vacation like that?
For other reviews, please see my site.
4 Stars boys will be boys
James and his friend Eamon are going to Nature Camp for a week. It’s a day camp near Eamon’s grandparent’s beach front house where the boys spend their week. If you want to see what they did at camp all you need to read are the endpapers which are snapshots of their time at camp. Their best week ever happened at Bill and Pam’s (Eamon’s grandparent’s) house.
Bill’s a nice old guy who has traveled the world, loves penguins, and wants to talk about Antarctica all the time. The boys couldn’t care less. Pam’s cooking is better than anything the boys get at home, but probably because all she serves them is banana waffles. The boys stay in the basement, sleep on an inflatable mattress that serves as a fort, a trampoline, and a couch for their video game playing. They wear the same shorts all week long.
James and Eamon are boys, true boys, marginally overseen by adults, living the summer that boys dream of. Their week over, the boys look out over the ocean at night, feeling something they can’t articulate. But they know what to do: they collect driftwood, small rocks and mussel shells and assemble a miniature Antarctica complete with penguins on the deck. They hug Pam and Bill and hope they can go to Nature Camp again soon.
Frazee knows boys. At the very least she knows these boys, and she knows that with boys everything is indirect. Bill asks them if they want to go see the penguin exhibit at the zoo, they boys say they’ll think about it, and then they run away. They aren’t trying to be rude, they’re just boys doing what boys do, which is run away from conflict. I don’t have a problem with this, because Frazee presents this with the same carefree attitude that boys bring with them. At the very end of their week when the boys don’t know how to address their feelings of sorrow they do what boys do best: they build things, the express their feeling physically.
I’m on the fence between calling this a good picture book and a great picture book. It’s heart is in the right place, the humor is dry and authentic, but I’m left feeling like their best week ever needed a little more of an anchor, maybe one or two more activities to solidify their week. Their days are taken up with Nature Camp — which is never shown, and I’m fine with that — but I wish they’d had more time at Pam and Bill’s to build or create or invent some week-long project that could mirror the building of their summer friendship.
Will boys like it? Probably. Will they get it? Maybe. Does it matter? Nope.
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever
* “Frazee (Roller Coaster) salutes grandparents and slyly notes children’’s diversions in this breezy tale of “the best week ever.” After Eamon enrolls in nature camp, he spends nights with his grandparents, Bill and Pam, at their beach cottage. Eamon’’s friend James joins the sleepover, and although the text describes James as “very sad” when his mother drives away, a cartoon shows him exuberantly waving “Bye!” Humorous contradictions arise between the hand-lettered account (”Bill handed them each a pair of binoculars and a list of birds to look for. On the way home, the boys reported their findings”) and voice-bubble exchanges between the boys (Eamon, training the lenses on James: “His freckles are huge.” James: “Yeah, and his tongue is gross”). Bill tries to interest the boys in a museum exhibit on penguins; the inseparable friends (”To save time, Bill began calling them Jamon”) show no enthusiasm yet energetically build “penguins” from mussel shells. Frazee’’s narrative resembles a tongue-in-cheek travel journal, with plenty of enticing pencil and gouache illustrations of the characters knocking about the shoreline. Like The Hello Goodbye Window, Frazee’’s story celebrates casual extended-family affection, with a knowing wink at the friends” dismissal of their elders” best-laid plans.” (starred review) (Publishers Weekly 20080301)
* “Frazee’s hilarious round-headed cartoons romp across the page in snort-inducing counterpoint, abetted by the occasional speech balloon. . . . The genius here is not that the boys finally get outside in the end; it’s that their joy in being together is celebrated equally whether they’re annihilating each other in a video game or building a replica of Antarctica on Bill and Pam’s dock. As respectful of kid sensibilities and priorities as it’s possible for an adult to achieve.” (starred review) (Kirkus Reviews 20080301)
* “Summer can seem a long time away during the colder portions of the year, and summer books can hold a special promise and poignancy in the long run-up until the months of freedom. Truly stellar summer books, such as Lynne Rae Perkins’ Pictures from Our Vacation can evoke the weirdness and unexpected magic of summer’s free-form experiences even in the darkest season. Add in some snarky and boisterous grade-school humor, and you’ve got A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever. . . . This sweetly captures the pleasures of youthful time-wasting in the company of your best friend with a keen understanding that those pleasures are best when they’re unsentimental. The result is just realistic enough to be perfect, a grade-schooler’s idyllic summer with limited demands for learning and bettering and a whole lot of reveling in kid priorities. A wonderful late-winter reminder that summer is coming, this will cheer up audiences by encouraging them to reflect on glorious summers past and even more glorious summers to anticipate.” (starred review) (The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books )
* “Frazee brings out the typical energy of a couple of boys who may scoff at nature and seem to prefer watching TV, but it is through her artful illustrations that readers catch glimpses of just how savvy and creative these kids can be. . . . This intergenerational story will elicit howls of laughter and requests for repeated readings.” (starred review) (School Library Journal )
User Ratings and Reviews
1 Star What is happening to our children’s books?
I am completely appalled that this book won the 2009 Caldecott Award. Not only is it an unoriginal and drab story but to me, this represents everything that is wrong with American culture. Children are shaped by the things they read and see from a very young age, this book is not a positive influence. It encourages gluttony and mindless activity while discouraging acquisition of important knowledge (nature camp).
5 Stars A Really Good Book
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever
Is a good book and is very funny. It amuses people all ages. My whole class laughed at it. The two boys are named James and Eamon and go to Eamon’s grand parents.
They want to stay at their house eat junk food and play video games, but Bill, James grandfather loves nature most of all in cold places with penguins so sends them to camp. In the book you never actually see them at camp, but only going to camp.
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever
is full of humor and is definitely worth getting.
5 Stars A strong mCaldecott contender
Marla Frazze’s best picture book to date. A seamless blend of pictures and text. Laugh out loud funny and a great choice for ages 4-10. When you read the text, keep in mind that Frazee hand wrote every word in the book.
5 Stars Delightful and Timeless
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever is as merry and timeless as Robert McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal. James and Eamon, best friends, go to visit Eamon’s grandparents, Bill and Pam, at the beach for a week during the summer. During the day, Bill has the boys attend nature camp as he loves everything to do with nature, especially cold places with penguins. The boys don’t exactly love camp. As a matter of fact, you never actually see the boys at camp throughout the story. You only see Bill driving them to and from camp with the boys making sarcastic comments in the backseat (see the endpapers for some pictures of the boys at camp). James and Eamon would much rather stay at Bill and Pam’s playing video games, eating ice cream icebergs and banana waffles, and turning their blow-up mattress into a trampoline. In other words, they don’t want to do much of anything. Heck, they don’t even want to change their shorts throughout the week. For James and Eamon, the best week ever consists of an air mattress in the downstairs bedroom, fun food, and the company of a best friend. It’s just that simple. Now, where do I sign up for a vacation like that?
For other reviews, please see my site.
4 Stars boys will be boys
James and his friend Eamon are going to Nature Camp for a week. It’s a day camp near Eamon’s grandparent’s beach front house where the boys spend their week. If you want to see what they did at camp all you need to read are the endpapers which are snapshots of their time at camp. Their best week ever happened at Bill and Pam’s (Eamon’s grandparent’s) house.
Bill’s a nice old guy who has traveled the world, loves penguins, and wants to talk about Antarctica all the time. The boys couldn’t care less. Pam’s cooking is better than anything the boys get at home, but probably because all she serves them is banana waffles. The boys stay in the basement, sleep on an inflatable mattress that serves as a fort, a trampoline, and a couch for their video game playing. They wear the same shorts all week long.
James and Eamon are boys, true boys, marginally overseen by adults, living the summer that boys dream of. Their week over, the boys look out over the ocean at night, feeling something they can’t articulate. But they know what to do: they collect driftwood, small rocks and mussel shells and assemble a miniature Antarctica complete with penguins on the deck. They hug Pam and Bill and hope they can go to Nature Camp again soon.
Frazee knows boys. At the very least she knows these boys, and she knows that with boys everything is indirect. Bill asks them if they want to go see the penguin exhibit at the zoo, they boys say they’ll think about it, and then they run away. They aren’t trying to be rude, they’re just boys doing what boys do, which is run away from conflict. I don’t have a problem with this, because Frazee presents this with the same carefree attitude that boys bring with them. At the very end of their week when the boys don’t know how to address their feelings of sorrow they do what boys do best: they build things, the express their feeling physically.
I’m on the fence between calling this a good picture book and a great picture book. It’s heart is in the right place, the humor is dry and authentic, but I’m left feeling like their best week ever needed a little more of an anchor, maybe one or two more activities to solidify their week. Their days are taken up with Nature Camp — which is never shown, and I’m fine with that — but I wish they’d had more time at Pam and Bill’s to build or create or invent some week-long project that could mirror the building of their summer friendship.
Will boys like it? Probably. Will they get it? Maybe. Does it matter? Nope.
The Penderwicks
Grade 4-6–In Jeanne Birdsall’s humorous novel (Knopf, 2005), four motherless sisters—Rosalind, 12, Skye, 11, Jane, 10, and Batty, 4—their absentminded professor dad, and the family dog share a summer retreat on the Massachusetts estate of Arundel. Owned by the frosty Mrs. Tifton and her lonely son, Jeffrey, Arundel’s pretentious mistress treats the oddly-matched Penderwick sisters and their doting father as social misfits. Feisty Skye and sensitive Jeffrey become best friends, drawing the reluctant Mrs. Tifton and the entire Penderwick clan into a series of hilarious misadventures, including runaway pets, an encounter with a bull, and a first crush. The sisters are determined to help Jeffrey escape being sent to the Pencey Military Academy, Where boys become men and men become soldiers. Susan Denaker’s gentle narration of this 2005 National Book Award winner perfectly captures the subtle humor and charm of each character. Fans of Sydney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family or Maud Hart’s Betsy-Tacy novels will love this updated version of a comfortable childhood adventure. Just the ticket for an extended family car trip.–Celeste Steward, Alameda County Library, Fremont, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars A Big Hit
My little niece LOVES this book! I hesitated at first because it dealt with the death of a parent. But, surprise, surprise, she has read and is reading it again. I haven’t had the pleasure yet but I will. A perfect selection for an 8y/o bibliophile!
5 Stars A GREAT family story
Our whole family (with children ages 2 -12) LOVED this story! It is funny. It is sweet. It is true to the best and some of the oddities of human behavior and family life. I wish there were more “modern” wholesome family stories like this one!
5 Stars Wholesome and fun
My family loved this story. The characters are all strong and interesting. My 7 year old boy and 10 year old girl will want to listen to this many times. I can’t imagine NOT enjoying this book.
Holiday in the Sun
Whisked away to the Bahamas in a private jet by their pilot dad, Mary- Kate and Ashley Olsen (playing twins Alex and Madison) are initially disappointed to be missing their class trip to Hawaii. (Just what high school do these girls attend?) But the 15-year-olds recover upon meeting up with their mom on the sunny tarmac, checking into their own suite at the Atlantis resort, and getting acquainted with some cute boys on the island. Parents may see this 88- minute movie as one long advertisement for the Paradise Island resort, with the constant mentioning of its name and endless showcasing of its attractions. But kids, particularly girls ages 7 to 12, will get a kick out of Alex’s rivalry with the rich superwitch Brianna for marine worker Jordan’s affections. Then there’s the updated Cyrano storyline with Dad’s business partner’s son Griffen coaching dim-but-likable Scott on how to win over Madison. Throw in an antiquities smuggling subplot, some dolphin hugging, horseback riding, and wave running and you’ve got some fairly innocent entertainment augmented with frothy tunes by teen group up-and-comers Play, Empty Trash (featuring vocals by the twins), Tte American Girls, and Noogie. –Kimberly Heinrichs
User Ratings and Reviews
1 Star the worst MK & A movie
I’m a male in his 20s who used to watch Olsen Twins movies back in the day because I had a huge crush on them. I nonetheless tried to observe some semblance of plot and direction none of which this movie has got going for it.
Unless your a teenage girl or a guy who loves looking at the Olsen twins, you will not be able to tolerate this movie. I thought this movie was so terrible back in the day, I had to share my disgust about it years later.
First of all, there is nothing redeeming about it in 2009 other than the fact that is features European girl group Play, and Megan Fox (Transformers). Even when it came out it was ridiculous for the Olsen twins. There is no plot within the first hour of the movie. ZERO plot. What eventually turns into a movie is a very poor unimaginable story about one of their friends being involved in a some kind of illegal scheme. It’s that first hour of the movie that is God-awful terrible. What you can expect in that first hour is random nonsense, the girls shopping, goofing around in a pool, whining and complaining about not getting what they want, and generally doing little too redeem Upper-class American teenager girls.
Do not, I reiterate, DO NOT waste your money purchasing this movie or waste valuable brain cells seeing it no matter who you are.
5 Stars Holiday in the Sun….sooo much Fun!
This by-far my favorite Mary-Kate and Ashley movie! The others were pretty good but I just can’t get this one out of my head. The girls go the the Bahamas and there is adventure, romance, and just plain fun. Every since I’ve watched this I have wanted to go visit The Atlantis. The movie starts out with 2 girls and their parents doing vacation at the Bahamas. Of course they are heart broken because all their other friends got to go to Hawaii. They meet with the family friends and the adventure begins. The scrawny young friend they used to have is now a VERY cute, not so scrawny young man. There is also an employee at the resort that turns a couple of heads himself. They catch crooks, swim with dolphins, shop in some cool locations, and fall for the best guys, lol. Anyone that likes M-K and A movies will definitely love it. You won’t be able to resist.
5 Stars Holiday in the Sun!
Mary-Kate and Ashley are spending Winter Break at the lavish Atlantis, Paradise Island resort in The Bahamas. Their parents bring them along, but that means they have to miss their school trip to Hawaii with all their friends.
Determined to make the best of the situation, the girls decide there’s only one thing to do: unleash a tropical hurricane of off-the-hock action and head-over-heals tropical romance.
But, amid the yachts, private jets, waverunners, scuba diving, motor scooters, horseback riding and moonlit strolls, Mary-Kate and Ashley stumble across an antiquities smuggling ring! Mary-Kate and Ashley discover the time of their lives on their…
Holiday in the Sun!
1 Star Yet another B-movie.
Along with Our Lips Are Sealed, Passport to Paris, and that one movie that took place in Italy, the Olsen twins have made another crappy film.
Between desperate Griffin trying to help clueless Scott get Madison to think he’s “smart” and Jordan being Mr. Cool over Alex…what’s the difference between Madison and Alex??? This movie truly stinks.
It’s all MK and Ash having fluffy fun at an island resort, and then saving the US from Champlain.
Give this movie to an 8-year-old girl for Christmas…they’ll love it.
3 Stars Not reallly me
I didn’t really like this film I thought it was to slow and boring. It mainly about mary-kate and ashley and they find boyfriends and it goes on very slowly. Not my cup of tea but thats just my oppion I think a lot of people won’t like this film. You know I do love mary-kate and Ashley but just not in this film. Although I think New york minute is very good (with mary-kate and ashley). i wasn’t dissing you girls but not very good.
Family Vacation Packages
New Search Results, from Technorati and Ingboo
pTechnorati and Ingboo have partnered together to provide an all new kind of subscription experience...
The West and Karzai on Different Pages
Hamid Karzai and his foreign backers appear headed in opposite directions.img src=http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/trarticles/~4/XbG-S1W8Fb4...
Blog Focus: Thanksgiving Preparation
Bloggers weigh in on how to get through the meal, entertain guests and not forget your dietimg src=http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/trarticles/~4/6HdWNdDP7Uc...
Family Vacation Spots
Virginia Shares Heartwarming ‘Togethering’ Spots for Winter Getaways
Blog Focus on Tech Misfits, Boo-Boos, and Practical Jokes
Tech products and companies put together a clip show of bad behavior worthy of Santa's critical eyeimg...
Blog Focus On Anh Joseph Cao
The lone Republican to vote for the Pelosi health care bill in the House is going under the national...
Main Content
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week EverA Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever * “Frazee (Roller Coaster) salutes grandparents and slyly notes children’’s...
