Customer Reviews

Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just bought this book for our 7 year old son and not only does he love it, but so does his 4 year old sister! Since we got it, she's been asking me to read it to her every night at bedtime! What an original story and the illustrations are fantastic! The story is something that the kids find amusing but, at the same time, it's educational. Even I learned some new things about blue whales!! Bottom line...this book has something for everyone of all ages. I highly recommend it!

What if Mom and Dad taught you responsibility by giving you a pet-- Whale!?
This book is GREAT! It takes exaggeration literally, and goes big, stretching reality in a way that reminds me of Roald Dahl. The book nudges the Clifford the Big Red Dog, and Danny and the Dinosaur genre, and says, really? Doesn't a pet that big smell pretty foul? And isn't it pretty inconvenient feeding your pet, say, 10,000 gallons of sea water daily? I laugh aloud every time I read it. The illustrations are vast, vivid, and just as clever as the text.
Don't miss the special offer under the dust jacket!
"Send us a self-addressed, stamped envelope (we call it a S.A.S.E.!) and we'll send you a blue whale.
What?!
My S.A.S.E. is in the mail!

This book will have readers of all ages laughing hysterically at Billy Twitters' predicament. Younger kids will love the silly illustrations and the wonderful details of childhood, while their parents will also appreciate the book's sly sense of humor. Don't forget to order your own Blue Whale - just check inside the dust jacket.

It's hard to decide on a favorite thing about this book.

The illustrations are amazing -- so expressive and funny and detailed.

The story line is a hoot -- buying a kid a blue whale to teach him responsibility.

The size of the book and the quality -- this is a BIG book.

It's hard to find a book that a babysitter and a kindergartener will both love. This book does it. Not to mention -- grown ups enjoy it, too.

There are a few bits of humor tossed into the illustrations that just really make this a five-star:

+ the end papers look like old-time Sears & Roebuck advertisements for products, but of course they are all nautical and hilarious. (Captain Sheepshank's Big Old Anchors: "We're Going Nowhere Fast")
+ A "Cetacean of a Tale"
+ Mom fumes and her head is a storm cloud. The parents' faces are covered with the words coming out of their mouths. That's a clever touch.
+ Jacques Cousteau
+ The delivery service is FedUp -- delivering punishments worldwide
+ Jacques Cousteau!
+ The whale gets sprayed with graffiti while Billy is at school.
+ The fold-out whale care instruction booklet looks like airplane emergency cards -- nice touch.
+ Barnacles

The ending is so great. Don't hesitate to get this one. It would make a great birthday gift for any kid -- ages 5 to dead, as my kids say.

My 9-year-old son has read this book repeatedly for the last two years with great hope and expectation about getting his blue whale (through the offer on the inside back cover made by the author). Many reviews point out the offer, but I have not seen a review the describes what in fact happens if a child sends in a SASE for the delivery of that blue whale. Well, in our household, there is great excitement because Frederick, the blue whale, patiently awaits the outcome of a legal snarl that is delaying his delivery to our family. In the meantime, we have a picture of Frederick and can send him messages. My son's joy and enthusiasm about oceanography and whales in particular have been heightened by this imaginative book and its promise of delivery of a blue whale. Also hidden in the delightful story are good lessons about behavior and responsibility. Kudos to this author/illustrator duo for a lovely book that should be read and cherished by kids of all ages.

This book is hilarious. Great, imaginative, kid's book that just might strike a chord with an adult or two.

I have shared an illustration in this book with so many FedEx and UPS guys - the one where they're trying to figure out how the heck they're going to deliver a whale to a residential address - that I could cherish this book for that alone. But it's a clever story, too, with a good kinda-surprise ending. Great for grownups as well as kids.

This book was about a boy, Billy Twitters, who did not do what his mom asked him to do. As punishment, his mom got him blue whale. She thought this would teach Billy to be more responsible.

I liked this book because it was a good mix of fantasy and fact. The author is funny, but he also teaches the reader some true things about whales. The pictures were good, the story was unpredictable, and mostly it was funny - especially when Billy tried to take the whale to school with him by dragging him along on a skateboard.

I did have a little bit of trouble connecting how getting a blue whale could be punishment. I love whales and would never clean my room or listen to my mom if it meant I could have a whale.

Boys and girls of elementary school-age who like whales would enjoy reading this book because it covers topics that all children enjoy.

Overall, I would give this book 5 stars.

Review by Young Mensan Summer H., age 6

Parents are always making idle threats to their children, and I'm sure we've made threats of other unlikely and impossible punishments in passing. Billy Twitters's parents' idle threat is to buy their son a blue whale if he doesn't start doing what they ask -- like cleaning his room, or eating his vegetable, or all of the other things that energetic young boys don't want to do.

Billy, of course, doesn't do those things -- and, since this is a picture book, his parents really do buy him a blue whale, the largest mammal on earth, and he has to drag it to school and feed it and do all of the other duties of a responsible pet-owner. But Barnett doesn't feel compelled to teach the life-lesson that BILLY TWITTERS could so easily have fallen into being -- he's much more interested in exploring the possibilities of a boy with a giant whale in tow -- so BILLY TWITTERS feels much more contemporary, quirky, and fun than you'd expect from a book with "problem" in the title. It's still primarily a book for grade-schoolers, sure, but it's a zippy book for those kids, with lots of little jokes around the edges (don't miss the printed case, for example -- under the dust-jacket; it's filled with what would be bonus material on a DVD).

After his mother's pleas to clean his room, etc. fall on deaf ears, a "FedUp" truck (Delivering Punishment Worldwide, it reads on the side) pulls up in front of Billy Twitters' house. Needless to say, it's carrying an extremely large delivery.

And so goes Billy's hilarious foray into Learning to Be Responsible. Not only does he have to wash his whale, wax his whale, and check his whale for barnacles, but he has to take his whale to school, wrestle his whale, race his whale, and take his whale to the park. Whew. Adam Rex's illustrations are unforgettable as usual (if you've never seen The Dirty Cowboy, check it out immediately), and the suspension of disbelief throughout the story is inspired. No one ever asks "why?" or "how?" It's just understood: You get a blue whale, you drag it to school on your bike. Lovely.