Baloney (Henry P.)

Author: Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith
Publication Date: 2005
Type of Book: Science Fiction Picture Book

This picture book tells the story of an alien named Henry P. Baloney. Henry loves to tell wise tales especially to his teacher. When he is late to school again his teacher says that he better have a very good excuse this time. Henry then goes off on a tangent about this crazy story that happened to him causing him to be late. In the end the teacher said that his story wasn't very believable, but he lucked out since the assignment for the day is to create a tall tale.

The coolest part of this book is that is uses words from different languages around the world. When reading the story you can guess what the different words mean but sometimes you just don't know. To help readers the author provided a word decoder in the back of the book. This story did a good job in incorporating science fiction and teaching students about the literary genre tall tales. The story was also written in a way that is fun for readers. Words and pictures move all around the pages and the font is in different sizes. Some of the words that aren't english are in a different color. I thought that overall this was a very cute story that students would find very entertaining to read.

I would recommend this book to upper elementary school students because the author incorporated words from different languages. Students in lower elementary school would have difficulty comprehending the story and would struggle with decoding some of the words. Teachers could use this book to have students practice using context clues to help with their reading. On the pages that contain words from the different languages students can try to see if they can decode the words using clues from the text. At the end they can use the decoder in the back of the book to check how well they did. Teachers can also use this as an instructional tool for teaching about tall tales and students can create their own tall tale after reading the book.

Image References:
http://www.amazon.com/Baloney-Henry-P-Jon-Scieszka/dp/0142404306