Title: Eville, U.S.A.
Author: Julia Dweck
Illustrator: Fian Arroy0
Year published: 2012
Publisher: KiteReaders
Number of pages: 21
Recommended age: 4+
Son Rating: ★★★★★
Mom Rating: ★★★★½
Reviewed by: Renee and Dominic (Mother and Son)
Summary (Amazon): Have you ever wondered where monsters, zombies, and villains go on holiday? Once a year, they meet in a town called, Eville, U.S.A. You’ve never heard of it? Well, most humans haven’t. Being a monster is exhausting work. You spend long hours, plotting, planning, and lurking. Down in Eville, U.S.A., monsters of all shapes and sizes meet to take a break and relax. Join them on holiday. You’ll have a monstrously good time!
SON SAYS
What I liked and disliked: My favorite thing about this book was that it was funny. One of the funny parts is one nobody is looking at the shelves, the monsters all steal the trophies. It was funny when Mr. Cyclops scares Mr. Blue Dude. I liked that on a lot of the pages there were ghosts and monsters and parts of them in the background.The pictures of all of the monsters are really, really funny. I really liked them. It’s funny how they show one of the monsters cheating in basketball by grabbing all the monsters and putting the net down so his team can score.
There was nothing I didn’t like about it.
My bottom line: I liked this book and I would recommend it to all boys but not girls because girls like pretty stuff better than monster stuff.
MOM SAYS
What I liked and disliked: Once again Julia Dweck delights readers with a whimsical rhyming tale about monsters, ogres, and ghouls who descend upon Eville, USA for their annual convention. The most striking feature of this wonderful ebook are the absolutely stunning illustrations by Fian Arroy0. The level of detail and quality of images are unbelievable. Further, the variety of monsters and ghouls illustrated is astounding. Visually, the book has so much to offer young and older readers alike.
As always, Dweck provides a silly story told through a series of rhyming verses. These monsters were born to be bad and we really enjoyed seeing some of the ways in which they cheated in games, made scary faces, stole things, and were just plain Evil(le). I think my favorite part was learning about monster education and the three R’s: learning to be Repulsive, Rough, and Rude. At least my kids didn’t say that wanted to go to THAT school! lol
While we all really enjoyed the book, I felt that this one was a bit more disjointed than Zombie-Kids – the other Julia Dweck book we reviewed. For example, a few pages of the story were about monsters in general, not about the convention in Eville and once the story began focusing on the convention in Eville, it was a bit repetitive. For example, a few pages focused on cheating in the games and a couple of pages focused on stealing. There could have been more variety in the types of bad monster behaviour. That being said, I’m not the one trying to come up with these complex rhymes. For that reason, I’m really labelling that a small parental issue. The kids didn’t complain!
My bottom line: Overall, we all really loved this terrific book and I would certainly highly recommend it to kids 4+. Oh, and I cannot believe what my son said about boys versus girls in his bottom line! Seriously?!
Eville, U.S.A. was provided to us by the author free-of-charge in exchange for our honest review.
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