Space Guys! (A Holiday House Reader, Level 1) - Hardcover

This very easy reader from Weston (Cats Are Like That, 1999, etc.) is pretty thin gruel, though it does pack the kind of finish all kids would like as endings to those stories their parents just won't believe. A beeping noise is keeping a young boy awake. He investigates and discovers, of course, a space ship outside his window. He alerts his mother and father, who tell him the ``space guys'' are in his head, not in a tree outside. So the boy returns to his room and cavorts with the space guys, making a sweet mess in the process. Come morning, his parents find the mess and demand an accounting. It was the space guys, pleads the boy, and he has proof: a photo he has taken of the aliens while they were goofing around that night. Case closed. The text, in verse, is composed of one and two syllable words, just right for very early reading: ``Oh! / Hi, space guys. / Like my plane? / It can fly. / Shh! Too loud. / Come with me. / Stop! Don't eat soap! / Oh, no! Yucky!'' The subject is an inviting one, too, although the end result of the monosyllabic style is more like a school reader. The real pull is left to the artwork, homey watercolors of three lively space guys whom Weston has invested with plenty of energy. (Easy reader. 4-7) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Kindergarten-Grade 1-When a boy tells his parents that he has been visited by aliens in the middle of the night, they quickly dismiss his claim ("Now, now,/go to bed./Space guys/are in your head") and return to their slumbers. This amusing story will capture and hold readers' attention as the three space guys wreak havoc in the child's house. One eats the soap, another becomes wrapped, mummy style, in toilet paper, while the third squeezes toothpaste all over himself and the bathroom sink. The rhyme sometimes seems a bit forced and occasionally carries over from one spread to the next, which might be a bit confusing for beginning readers. Humorous full-color pictures ably depict the action as well as the characters' facial expressions, particularly the stunned look on the parents' faces the morning after when they find a Polaroid snapshot of the extraterrestrials. Overall, this simple story will appeal to youngsters.
Nancy J. Fuster, Whittier Elementary School, Bozeman, MT
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