Backpacks!

August 1, 2015

K-Gr 2-Moore offers another delightful tale of her red-headed heroine, Freckleface Strawberry. In Backpacks!, Freckleface and her best friend, Windy Pants Patrick, are both enthusiastic students who always do their homework and prepare their own backpacks with their favorite items. Unfortunately, the two friends discover that their favorite items (bubble gum and doughnuts) do not necessarily belong in their backpacks. Ruined homework fills the students with despair until their teacher mistakes their poor judgment for scholarly creativity. Faced with false praise, the two students face up to their mistakes rather than lie to their teacher, leading to a kind and whimsical ending. In Lunch, Freckleface and Windy Pants are back in action and solving one of life's most universal mysteries: What on Earth is that thing they are serving for school lunch? The two budding foodies adore noodles, hot dogs, and sandwiches-however, they are baffled by the odd green gloop served in the cafeteria. Freckleface and her peculiar meal soon draw a crowd of disbelievers and skeptics, but Freckleface braves her trepidation and decides to try something new to surprisingly pleasant results. The Japanese brush pen illustrations bring to life the expressive faces of the children, and the wide spectrum of colors are used effectively, particularly with the freckles of the main character. The bold style and strong colors we have come to expect from the series are used cleverly to portray various characters and busy spaces, while there is an excellent use of white space for clear and concise text. VERDICT Fans of the series will welcome these latest installments.-Maria Alegre, The Dalton School, New York City

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 8, 2007
Actress Moore's first book for children introduces a girl “who was just like everybody else except for one thing,” which turns out to be two things: she has red hair and “something worse”—freckles. The child finds herself dubbed Freckleface Strawberry, and her peers annoy her with inane remarks: “If you got more freckles, you would be one big freckle, and that would be a tan” and “Can I smell them?” Predictably, she attempts to eradicate her freckles (she tries scrubbing, dousing them with lemon juice and drawing on herself with markers). When nothing works, she resorts to wearing a ski mask, whereupon her friends wonder aloud where she has gone. When she finally removes the hot, itchy mask, the gang announces that they've missed her, prompting her to “smile so wide, she thought she would crack open” and to conclude, “Who cared about having a million freckles when she had a million friends?” In Pham's (Big Sister, Little Sister
) homely cartoons, rendered with a Japanese brush pen and digitally colored, the reddish spots covering the girl's face and arms look like a rash. With both the story and pictures presenting freckles as something of an affliction, freckle-faced readers are likely to wince. Ages 3-8.