The Stupids Take Off - Softcover

Harry Allard is the author of many hilarious books for children, including several Miss Nelson and Stupid Family titles, all illustrated by James Marshall.
 

James Marshall (1942–1992) created dozens of exuberant and captivating books for children, including The Stupids, Miss Nelson Is Missing!, and the ever-popular George and Martha books. Before creating his canon of classic, hilarious children’s books, James Marshall played the viola, studied French, and received a master’s degree from Trinity College. He also doodled. It was the doodles, and the unforgettable characters that emerged from them, that led him to his life’s work as one of the finest creators of children’s books of the twentieth century. In 2007, James Marshall was posthumously awarded the Laura Ingalls Wilder medal for his lasting contribution to literature for children.

Kindergarten-Grade 2-- Back in another adventure, the Stupid family now takes an unplanned trip in order to avoid a visit from the dreaded Uncle Carbuncle. On their day-long travels, they run into a series of other Stupid relatives, and finally return home. Few books delight young readers more than wonderfully silly offerings, such as Judith Barrett's Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (Atheneum, 1978) and Mercer Mayer's What Do You Do with a Kangaroo? (Scholastic, 1975), in which children's growing knowledge of the real world lets them in on the joke. Allard and Marshall have filled the pages of this book with lots of silliness and sight gags--but if a book is nothing but a series of bad puns and weak humor, it falls flat. Some readers might enjoy this latest of the Stupid adventures, but many will find it more like a collection of bad knock-knock jokes. While The Stupids Step Out (1974) and The Stupids Have a Ball (1978) had cohesive stories and wit, this entry resembles The Stupids Die (1981, all Houghton) in its lame attempt to entertain. There is more "Yuck!" than good yucks. --Virginia E. Jeschelnig, Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library, Willowick, OH
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