One Cool Friend

One Cool Friend

Written by Tony Buzzeo

Illustrated by David Small

Dial, 2012

32 pages

Children’s/ Picture Book

                                                                                                                                                                                   

                I chose this story because I love penguins, so it automatically appealed to me.  This story follows a little boy named Elliot on his adventure to the aquarium with his father.  Elliot is a rather proper child who likes to wear a tux, his father is more laid back and a very colorful character. When Elliot goes to the aquarium he skips past every other exhibit and heads straight toward the penguins. Elliot goes to ask his father for some money to buy a penguin and when his father hands him a twenty he is not expecting what Elliot has in mind. Elliot then goes to back to the penguin exhibit, opens his back pack and picks out the tiniest penguin to take home with him. Once they get back home there is tons of surprises that Elliot’s new penguin has in store for him and his father. To find out exactly you definitely need to read One Cool Friend.

                The illustrations in this book are wonderful. The pictures are simple black and white and some color thrown in throughout the story. Elliot is portrayed as proper and simple. Elliot’s father is more colorful and has a free spirit look about him. I feel that the illustrations are perfect for children by the simple yet detailed way they are drawn. The mediums used in this book are pen and ink, watercolors, and colored pencils. The pictures in this story are one page, and two page illustrations. The text is varied from the top, bottom and middle of the page, as well as some text is encircled in a bubble.

                I think any age group would enjoy this book, especially Second graders who might have had a field trip to an aquarium or more of a chance to have been there before. You can use this in your classroom in a Science lesson by talking to students about how certain animals are from the Artic and why they have to live there. This can be used by showing pictures of the animals, as well as how they live. You can use this in a writing activity by having the students write about what they love about the aquarium, and what animal exhibit they would be attracted to. Students also can do an art lesson on drawing a picture of them and their best friend doing an activity that they both love to do together.

This book was a 2013 Caldecott Honor book.