Oddrey Joins the Team
Written & Illustrated by Dave Whamond
Owlkids Books 8/15/2014
978-1-77147-061-2
32 pages Age 4—8
“When Oddfrey decides to join her school’s soccer team, she brings a new and unexpected approach to teamwork! On the day of the big game against the Quagville Crushers, nothing is going right—until Oddfrey comes up with a slightly unusual idea. Never afraid to be herself, Oddfrey devises a plan that gives her teammates the strength to be themselves, too. When they all use their individual talents to work together as a team, the results are extremely satisfying—and highly exuberant!” [book jacket]
Review
Oddfrey Joins the Team is the third Oddfrey book (Oddfrey, Oddfrey and the New Kid). According to the publisher, Oddfrey “marches to the beat of her own drum.” With a daisy sprouting from the top of her head, Oddfrey certainly looks odd. I like Oddfrey for a few reasons. First, she likes sports, although her idea of “sports” is sometimes odd. Oddfrey prefers to combine different sport to make a new game. For example, she kicks a basketball into the hoop, rather than shooting it, and bounces a football off her personal sized trampoline, rather than throw the ball to her helmeted dog. Oddfrey’s dog—spotted with big, beautiful, and excited eyes—sticks by her side, always ready to join in her fun. Which brings me to the second and third reasons I like Oddfrey: she does her own thing and she has a pooch for a pal.
I also like Oddfrey because she thinks outside of the soccer sidelines. I only know the basics of soccer: run back and forth after a ball and kick the ball into opponent’s net, which happens less often than one would think. Maybelline—new kid from book 2—asks Oddfrey to join the school’s soccer team—the Picadilla Bees. Maybelline is the star of the team, mainly because she hogs the ball, leaving the other kids to run back and forth. Oddfrey approaches soccer as she does other sports: in her own way. The players are confused and the coach is dismayed, as Oddfrey combines soccer with ballet. Between sending her shoe flying on an attempted kick, balancing on top of the ball, and cart wheeling down the field, Oddfrey does score a goal—GOOOAL!!!—by butt-bumping the ball into the net. Yes, Oddfrey is her own little gal.
The next game is the BIG GAME against the Quagville Crushers. The Bees practice hard. Milton karate-chops the ball down the field (Maybelline: “Just kick it!”). Earl head-bumps the ball (Maybelline: “Use your head, Earl!”). Maybelline gives everyone advice—where is the coach?—even to her friend Oddfrey. Following rules is not in Oddfrey’s skill-set. Poor Maybelline-the-Star, she cannot get it together in the BIG GAME. The Bees are falling fast to the Crushers. Oddfrey puts on her thinking cap and realizes the team name “Bees” must mean something—and it does. Oddfrey uses this to get her team buzzing. What is “Plan Bee,” you ask. Well, you know I can’t say, but read Oddfrey’s new story, Oddfrey Joins the Team, to find out. You’ll do a lot of laughing as you find the answer and read—and see—the exciting conclusion.
The illustrations are action-packed, with details running from spread-to-spread. But you don’t need to like soccer to enjoy Oddfrey Joins the Team. Oddfrey’s pals are interesting in their own right, and the story has less to do with soccer and more to do with ingenuity, friendship, teamwork, and . . . well, if I said the last feature, you might figure out the ending. Both girls and boys will enjoy Oddfrey and her stories. Older kids will also find much to love and enjoy about Oddfrey. Humor runs in both the illustrations and the text, making Oddfrey Joins the Team fast-paced, deliciously funny, and a great story hour book. Oddfrey’s individuality, imagination, and ingenuity are great traits for a character, real or human. Having read Oddfrey Joins the Team a few times, I am ready to skip to the library, Oddfrey-style, and read the first two books in Oddfrey’s, I mean Mr. Whamond’s quirky series.
ODDFREY JOINS THE TEAM. Text and illustrations copyright © 2014 by Dave Whamond. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Owlkids Books, Berkeley, CA, and Toronto, ON.
Purchase Oddfrey Joins the Team at Amazon—Book Depository— Owlkids Books.
Common Core Guidelines HERE
Learn more about Oddfrey Joins the Team HERE.
Meet the author, Dave Whamond, at his twitter: https://twitter.com/davewhamond
Find more picture books at the Owlkids Books website: http://www.owlkidsbooks.com
ALSO BY DAVE WHAMOND
Oddfrey —-A 2012 Texas 2×2 Selection
Oddfrey and the New Kid
My Think-a-ma-Jink —-Won the Blue Spruce Award
Reality Check—-Syndicated Cartoon Strip
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Copyright © 2015 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews. All Rights Reserved
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Maybe I'm a few years late to this particular discussion, but I think it bears repeating.
Last week on Pandora, I heard a great new song: "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People. It had a catchy, edgy beat and I found myself humming along. Later, my daughter said her 6th grade class had discussed this song because it talks about a school shooting. I didn't think much of her comment at the time, but the thought stuck with me.
Yesterday, I did some research on the song and, thanks to Google, found out the story behind the song. It's about a student who is bullied and harassed and who takes his gun to school to seek revenge. The lyrics are "run faster than my bullet." Here's what SongFacts says about the song:
Mark Foster explained the song's meaning to Spinner UK: "'Pumped Up Kicks' is about a kid that basically is losing his mind and is plotting revenge. He's an outcast. I feel like the youth in our culture are becoming more and more isolated. It's kind of an epidemic. Instead of writing about victims and some tragedy, I wanted to get into the killer's mind, like Truman Capote did in In Cold Blood. I love to write about characters. That's my style. I really like to get inside the heads of other people and try to walk in their shoes."
Foster says he considered writing the song from the perspective of the victim, but felt that would be a cop out. He also points out that there is no actual violence in the song, as the threats are all the kid's internal monologue.
Another writer for the Chicago Tribune decried the song's dark meaning:
But after looking closely at the song's lyrics and listening to it many extra times, I have come to agree that
By:
Kimberly Pauley,
on 6/14/2011
Blog:
Young Adult (& Kid's) Books Central
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A special announcement from author Jen Calonita:
SUMMER IS FINALLY HERE AND I WANT TO GIVE AWAY SOME BOOKS!
I cannot wait to get into the pool or head down to the beach and just enjoy the fine weather. When I was in junior high and high school we spent our summers on the east end of Long Island (the very East End that Reality Check is set in) and back then I hated the beach. No joke. Sand in my Walkman (yes, Walkman), in my turkey sandwich, sticking to me along with the sunscreen. I just hated going down to the shore. Oh, how times have changed. But back then the only way I could survive those days down at the beach with my sun-loving parents and younger sister was to read. I would pretty much read a book every few days. I'm not kidding--what else did I have to do really? I dare say we didn't even have cable back then (how did I ever survive?)! I would devour this series called Sweet Valley High. Thankfully there were over two hundred books in the series along with all these super special books that were double the length. Basically I had plenty to read and I read A LOT. I drove my parents nuts begging them to drive me to the local independent bookstore to get another book several times a week. My paperbacks worked hard for me -- they had watermarks from being read in the pool with wet fingers. They had sunscreen smears on the book jackets and sometimes even food fell on them, but that's the beauty of a paperback -- it takes a licking and keeps on ticking!
I hope you have as memorable of a summer as I had when I was growing up. To help you celebrate, I'm giving away one of my books in paperback a week, every week from July 3rd to August 29th. It could be a Secrets novel, or the new Reality Check paperback that just came out, or maybe it will be Sleepaway Girls, but it will always be a surprise! (No grumbling if you don't get your pick, okay?) Every week starting on July 3rd a new winner will be chosen at random and there are a bunch of ways you can enter to win. Here's how:
Each of the following will earn an entry:
• Follow Jen Calonita on Facebook and leave a comment saying, "I'm entering the Jen Calonita summer paperback-a-week giveaway!"
• Became a fan of the upcoming Belles series on Facebook, post on the wall, and leave a comment there saying, "I'm entering the Jen Calonita summer paperback-a-week giveaway!"
• Follow Jen Calonita on Twitter @jencalonita and leave a comment saying "I'm entering the Jen Calonita summer paperback-a-week giveaway!".
• Become an email subscriber of Jen Calonita's newsletter.
Winner will be chosen randomly each week and notified via email. Good luck and happy summer!
To enter the giveaway, follow the instructions above and visit/join/comment at Jen's Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Drop by
Jen's blog to say hi!
To learn more about Jen Calonita and her bestselling novels, visit
http://www.jencalonitaonline.com
In spite of its abrupt ending, I enjoyed Reality Check, Peter Abrahams’ new YA mystery. While the voice occasionally struck me as being more like that of a middle grade novel than YA (and this is definitely a YA novel), it’s very easy to read, with a likable protagonist. I’ll be recommending it to teens, and not just those looking for a mystery.
High school classes are just a means to an end for Cody. He needs to pass his classes to play football, and said classes aren’t worth the effort of trying to get good grades when he finds it hard to comprehend much of what is being taught. Staying eligible is all that matters, especially now that sophomore year is over. Junior year, after all, is when Cody can really catch the attention of college football coaches.
Cody’s girlfriend, on the other hand?
“I got a B in calc,” Clea said.
“Wow,” said Cody. There were two kids taking calc in the whole school, Clea—a sophomore like Cody—and some brain in the senior class. No one thought of Clea as a brain. She was just good at everything: striker on the varsity soccer team, class president, assistant editor of the lit mag; and the most beautiful girl in the school—in the whole state, in Cody’s opinion.
But a real person, as he well knew, capable of annoyance, for example. When Clea got annoyed, her right eyebrow did this little fluttering thing, like now. “Wow?” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. He himself wouldn’t ever get as far as calc, not close. “Pretty awesome.”
She shook her head. “I’ve never had a B.”
For a second or two, Cody didn’t quite get her meaning; he’d scored very few Bs himself. Then it hit him. “All As, every time?”
She nodded. (p. 5)
After a cheap shot injures Cody’s knee and ends his football season, Cody drops out of school and starts working full-time. One morning, the local newspaper’s headline catches his attention: “Local Girl Missing.”
Clea’s rich father has sent her to a boarding school in Vermont, and though Cody broke up with Clea, he is still worried. The next morning, Cody receives a letter in the mail. Clea sent it before she disappeared, and there’s something about the letter that bothers Cody. Is he reading too much into the letter, or is it really a clue? Determined to find Clea, Cody decides to go to Vermont himself in order to find her.
The mystery element of Reality Check does take a while to develop, but in the meantime, Abrahams fleshes out Cody, making him sympathetic and giving readers a great deal of insight into his character. I particularly liked how Cody doesn’t think of himself as a smart guy. Unlike many of the sleuths in children’s and YA mysteries, who are obviously bright and/or overachievers, Cody is an average guy—below average, academically—who gets involved in the investigation because of how much he cares for Clea. And where Cody’s poor grades and decision to drop out are concerned, the tone of the narrator is pretty matter-of-fact; they’re not presented as negatives or something to be ashamed of, just as part of who Cody is. (Okay, and the story wouldn’t work if Cody was in school, because then he couldn’t go to Vermont in the middle of a semester.) Once the mystery surrounding Clea’s disappearance emerges, it is suitably suspenseful and the motivations of the main players’ plausible. While I don’t think this is a great book, I did like it and would also like to see more YA books similar to it.
Among the reviews: The Compulsive Reader, Oops…Wrong Cookie, Reading Rants!, The Undercover Book Lover.
Book source: library.
My morning Chinatown walk was great, thanks, and I got back in time to watch the end of the Syracuse/Arizona game. S.U. won and is in the Sweet Sixteen!
It's tempting to post photo after photo of me standing in front of the groups I get to speak to this tour, but that would be dead boring for most of you, so I won't.
But I can't resist this one.
Lisa Yee came to the Vroman's event and sweettalked me into putting on this wig in honor of her new book, Absolutely Maybe. Do you think pink is my color? Lisa posted more pics on her blog, as well as a great shot of Neal Shusterman (who also came out, with Christine; thanks guys!). Neal looks good in pink, don't you think?
On a more serious note, a woman at the Vroman's event gave me a memorial ribbon that she had from a funeral earlier in the week; a funeral for a 42-year-old woman who died from complications of anorexia. It was a tear-filled moment for both of us.
Mrs. Nelson's Bookshop was filled with librarians, teachers, and a couple of pre-published writers. I also got to meet the latest Mr. Freeman, from SPEAK; a local teacher who is organizing the west coast premier stageplay adaptation of the book, and who is playing Mr. Freeman in the play. I am hoping I can make time to meet up with the cast when I am back in LA at the end of April.
A couple of quick shots from my morning stroll.
I paid homage to City Lights Bookstore (and picked up a volume of poetry by Nikki Giovanni.)
I had an excellent croissant and cappuccino in North Beach.
And best of all, I had Skype visits with my BH and the kids, and later with Queen Louise and her princes. Awesome start to the day!
TODAY'S EVENTS
3 PM Not Your Mother’s Book Club event hosted by Books Inc.
Bistro 9
1224 9th Ave
San Francisco, CA 94122
This is a ticketed event, ticket price includes book, gift bag, food & drinks. I’m not sure if there are still tickets available – contact Books Inc. Laurel Village or Books Inc. Burlingame
(415) 221-3666 or (650) 685-4911 for more info.
6:00 PM Kepler’s
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Contact: Lauren O’Niell
(650) 324-4321
MONDAY'S EVENTS
Morning & afternoon - School visits coordinated by Rakestraw, 409 Railroad Avenue, Danville, CA 94526, Contact: Mike Barnard, Phone: 925-837-7337. We're also supposed to have lunch with some area librarians - that will be fun!
7 PM Copperfields
140 Kentucky St
Petaluma, CA 94952
Contact: Patty Norman
707-762-0563
Tuesday... Seattle!
By:
crystal driedger,
on 2/29/2008
Blog:
Scribbled Business
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By the way: Here's the concept sketch:
Reading these posts about deadlines, as I dummy, makes me realize what an extended process this book making business is. It is a series of steps. With no guarantees. Strategic planning would help though.
Right now it is no pressure as I am doing spec and random art samples only, and if I ever submit again, mss. The writing is going to stay here, with me for now. Submitting both is becoming too much. Maybe because my stories are not hooky enough...yet. But my stories are still breathing and maturing. And I like them. I never disliked my own writing. Ever. And I compare a lot to what is out there and I just don't get it. But maybe I am an idiot. I don't know.
I might get brave and send a dummy to AAL, but I am so not sure and insecure and...and...and...
Once that contracted deadline looms the pressure will show its face. A flushed face I remember all too well. My low blood pressure will begin to stabilize.
Going back to work will serve its purpose here, if not for preparing me once more for deadlines. It took me a month to get back into a rigorous work routine. And to feel confident and productive.
And that doesn't mean dinner on the table or laundry in the washer.
Dawn at By Sun and Candlelight has this season's installment, in words and plentiful pictures, of the latest Field Day, just in time for late Spring. Rainbows, skinks, flowers, birds and bird books -- something for everyone, especially on an early Spring morning or a quiet, rainy day. Thank you, Dawn, for the wonderful idea and for continuing, season after season.
I had heard that song, but didn't realize what it was about. It is pretty catchy.
Remember the song "another one bites the dust" ? I loved that song as a kid because the muppets sang it, then later, my semenary teacher said it was about mass murder and was a song full of satan's influence. Maybe so for someone who was already almost criminally insane, but I sang it for a decade and hadn't killed anyone yet.
I think the line is crossed what the writing tells How. How to make the bomb, how to do the nitty gritty preparation for the act.
I think the line is crossed when the overall tone of the story/song condones or makes light of or encourages these kind of situations.
We all know that a lot of really bad stuff happens. And writing about it is not evil. I also think it's important to make it clear that because someone had a rough upbringing, it cannot excuse immoral behavior. Kids (and adults) need to learn to take responsibility for their choices. With all the violence on TV and video games, for many kids the sanctity of life is blurred.
I think the things we put into our minds influence us at some level. I heard or read somewhere that people who watch a lot of violence in movies or on TV, though they might not physically hurt anyone, tend to react more aggressively to situations that upset them, and it also can desensitize us. I remember when my son was little the more shows with fighting in them that he watched, the more he tended to act it out in play and when he got angry with his sisters he'd strike out more.
This past week I finished reading "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov. It's definitely told from the perspective of the bad guy, that is, if you consider a guy who falls in love with his 12-year-old stepdaughter, then kidnaps her, rapes her, and holds her captive for a few years, after his actions lead to her mother's death (but I guess it's OK because he only married her to get at her daughter anyway) bad. It was one of the most amazing books I've ever read.
The key, as has already been mentioned, is that, although the first-person narrator tries to glorify or at least justify his actions, he only comes off as fascinatingly evil. By no stretch of the imagination (probably not even a sick imagination) does this book glorify child rape. It's a very frightening book, but with one of the most amazing first-person narrations I've ever read.
Part of the fun of a book from the bad guys' perspective is that it gives the author a chance to develop an unreliable narrator, and to more deeply examine what evil is by showing the lengths a bad person will go through to justify his actions and depict himself as the good guy.
Humbert Humbert tries to depict himself as good although he knows he's going against societies norms and that he will be hated. But the more he tries to make himself look good, the sicker he becomes.
Fascinating book.