Carnegie's Excuse

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This extravagant tale is balm for the soul of any child who has become embroiled in the complex logistics of having told a ``real whopper.'' When Carnegie is late for school--``again''--she takes a deep breath before launching into an explanation. The youngster, it seems, took part in an all-night mission that involved a tiger, a blue shark, a big gorilla and some bumper cars. After a miserable day of not being believed, Carnegie is vindicated when her newfound friends drop her off at school the next day. The conclusion here is all that any prevaricator, professional or otherwise, could hope for. O'Donnell ( Pinkie Leaves Home ; Dizzy ) playfully guides his audience through the intricacies of his heroine's imagination via full spreads of wet on wet watercolor sprinkled with gritty wax resist images that exhibit sophistication and a guileless sense of wonder at the same time. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 1-- A young blonde girl is continually late for school. This time her excuse is that she helped a tiger find his way to the amusement park the night before. They are joined on the way by a blue shark and a gorilla. Because they stayed out so late, she slept in. `` `Carnegie. Your imagination is bigger than you are. You will stay after school today,' '' says her teacher. The next day, to the woman's amazement, the child is accompanied to her classroom door by her animal friends. She is never punished again. This enigmatic ending is the best part of a surprisingly flat story. Bright watercolor illustrations textured with colored chalk capture the action, exuberance, and energy that the text fails to supply. Shades of orange and blue play off each other so that the slapdash, childlike figures leap from the pages. Perhaps it is the contrast between the lively pictures and lifeless text that cause this effort to fail. --Nancy Seiner, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Emily Melton

Carnegie's late for school--again. When her teacher asks for an explanation, Carnegie comes up with a tale about tigers leaping through windows, sharks riding in shopping carts, and gorillas driving cars. Of course, Carnegie's teacher doesn't believe her, and Carnegie has to stay after school. But imagine the surprise on the faces of Carnegie's teacher and classmates when her "imaginary" friends--the tiger, the shark, and the gorilla--show up at school the next day! Most children have probably tried Carnegie's technique, but few of them have been as lucky as Carnegie. O'Donnell has written a simple, imaginative story that is just silly enough and just farfetched enough to appeal to a young child's sense of humor. The deftly drawn illustrations in subtly shaded primary colors are soft-edged and dreamlike. "Carnegie's Excuse" can be used to initiate a story time discussion about the difference between truth and fantasy, or it can simply be enjoyed as a fun-to-read story.