ITS A BOOK by Lane Smith

Because I love reading children's story books, it is not uncommon for me to take a half an hour of a trip to Barnes and Noble or Borders to read five or six new children's books. On one of my more recent trips, I happened to notice a new New York Times Best Selling children's hardcover book called It's A Book by Lane Smith. I think I initially picked it up because of the title and wanted to see what it was all about. I figured that maybe it was something I could use with my high school students.

So I settled into one of those big leather comfy chairs and started reading It's A Book and I was absolutely in love and in shock all at the same time. I was in love because I could use it with my high school students but I could probably never read it to a little kid. You can watch this video from MacMillan the publishing company to get the main idea of the book. Basically, a monkey is reading a book and a donkey is questioning him about it and trying to see how the book compares to modern technology when he asks, "Can it text? Blog? Scroll? Wi-Fi? Tweet?" And of course, the recurring answer from the monkey is, "No. It's a book."

I adore the modern focus on the digital age and the realities in today's technology crazed culture that forces us to often ask, "What does it do?" and "Can it do this?" or "Can it do that?" This is the reality that I face in the English classroom. I teach students that have grown up immersed in technology in a way that I can only hope to keep up with and most of what I have to offer are simply books. They don't have any fancy gizmo's, they don't come with apps or outrageous sound effects. And while I talk to my students often about books, and flood them with new books that they might enjoy, my only hope is that they will end up like the monkey and come to love the simplicity of sitting down in a big comfy chair and getting lost in a world created by an author that they may never meet.

I also loved the contrast between the modern topic and theme of the book and the classic looking drawings and color choice. The colors are muted and dull and while they may be deceiving, I think it was an intentional choice made by the artist to reinforce the simplicity of books themselves.

I always enjoy the simple repetitive lines of children's picture books and this book is no exception. Readers won't soon forget the monkey's tag-line, "It's a book," and children enjoying the book will also quickly find themselves predicting and announcing the lines of the monkey before he even says them. What they probably won't see coming is the shock ending!

When I read the ending, I wasn't sure what to do. I loved it and was a bit amazed at the same time. I don't know how Lane Smith got away with publishing this as a children's picture book. I wonder how parents will react. It is a great book for older children, teens and adults but wow. In any case, I loved it so much, I started looking for other books by Lane Smith to see if the others were as good and as controversial. Sadly, I didn't find any that day. Since then, I've read that this book ends in, what someone online called "typical Smith style." So again, I'm intrigued to read more by this author.

I did a little research on him and found out that that while I recognize a few of his book titles, namely The Happy Hockey Family Moves to the Country! and John, Paul, George, and Ben, more so, I recognize his name for his artwork in Jon Scieszka's books. He worked on several famous books with John Scieszka such as The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The Stinky Cheese Man and he also worked on some illustrations for a version of James and the Giant Peach and Dr. Seuss' Hooray for Diffendoffer Day!

He talks a little bit about Its a Book at his blog entitled, Curious Pages: Recommended Inappropriate Books for Kids.

But if you really want to know what shocked me so much, you'll have to read the book. Not only will you have to read it, you'll have to get to the very end and last page to see why I wouldn't recommend the book for young children. But at the same time, I tend to be very liberal. If the child is old enough or mature enough to understand the final joke, then go for it...they will laugh as much as I did. If you watch the video above, you will notice that the publishers hid the shock ending as films often do. You can't always get the answers you want from the Internet, film or even me, you'll have to read it because...it's a book.