Customer Reviews

Can You Make a Scary Face?

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Stop making those ugly faces or your face will freeze and stay that way the rest of your life."

I should have listened to Mom. But kids like making faces, the uglier, scarier, and funnier the better.
In "Can You Make a Scary Face" a fluorescent-green faced ladybug invites reader/listeners to engage in a frenetic face making frenzy to scare away a giant hungry frog. In the spirit of Simon says, kids are invited to stand, sit, and dance all around. It's the kind of activity a group of kids will love and the number of kids participating will increase the fun exponentially.

This is a Fun book with a capital F, with bright colors, big pages, silly premise, and an engaging ladybug character. I don't have young children but some of my coworkers do, and their kids thoroughly enjoyed the kinetic fun of this book.
"Can You Make a Scary Face" is a winner. Put it at the top of your list of read-aloud books.

With Can You Make A Scary Face, Thomas sticks with the same brightly colored illustrations and silly humor, but now offers a more interactive book. This book begs to be read aloud, preferably to a gaggle of kids.

It starts off with a ladybug shouting to the reader "Hey, you! Yes, I'm talking to you! Stand up!"
Turn the page and the ladybug says: "No, I changed my mind...sit down!"
And so it goes. The commands come faster and faster and soon the ladybug is ordering the kids to wiggle their noses, laugh, dance the chicken dance and blow tiny, tickly bugs out of their mouths. It's contagious and sure to be a hit in every preschool classroom.

It's lots of fun to pretend and even more fun if you can find a few friends to pretend with. Wait, there is a big smiley ladybug with two big front teeth who is smiling and pointing at you. "Hey, you!" she says, "yes I'm talking to you!" She wants you to stand up so she can give you some directions. You can stand right up as tall as her antennae and follow her instructions. Ooops, no sooner do you stand up she wants you to sit down. PLOP! No sooner do you sit down she wants you to stand up again. Now this is going to be some funny bug!

Do you know how to pretend? I'm sure you do and that's a LOT of fun. The ladybug is going to get us all in the pretend mood. The first thing she says to you is "Pretend you have a tiny bug on your nose. WIGGLE IT OFF!" She wants you to wiggle, laugh, dance, jiggle, move about, but most of all PRETEND as much as you can. She tells you not to fret if you have a tickly bug in your shirt because "there's a giant hungry frog coming to eat that tiny TICKLY bug STUCK in your shirt!" Get ready to have lots of fun because this ladybug is as silly as they come!

If at first perusal of this book you might say to yourself that it doesn't look like much or appears to be very appealing, but just add to the mix a few preschoolers or a Kindergarten class and it will be uproariously fun and zany. It reminded me a bit of Simon Says, but there is no room for error in this book because every youngster has his own "brand" of pretending. Just picture this book, a passel of children, a lot of laughter and you have the formula for a rollicking good time! What kind of a scary face can YOU make?

Can YOU Make a Scary Face?

Well, yes I can ---

My daughter took this clever little book to school to read to her first graders. She held up the book and immediately over 20 little kids started to laugh and get excited -- even before she started to read the text!!!!

These little first graders certainly needed something to get them remotivated on a warm August day during the first week of school. This book came to their rescue. It is full of directions and got the kids up and moving and most important, inter-acting and laughing. The book gives directions and actively involved movements which still kept the class under control. Yet, it allowed them to have fun and blow off some steam at the same time.

They loved the story line -- simple as it may be -- and could relate! Everyone has caught a lady bug and/or frog. The kids loved when the lady bug was afraid and especially enjoyed when the giant frog showed up! They couldn't stop smiling and laughing and wanted it read to them again.

One of the comments that struck my daughter funny was this, and I quote -- "What a coincidence that that big old frog came to see the lady bug."

This is a fun, inter-action book for young children. The illustrations are bright and bold. The use of different colors for the text is brilliant and is certainly pleasing and eye-catching for kids.

My two year old grand-daughter also enjoyed the book and now it is hers. Short, simple, fun, and sweet. Who could ask for more?

Thank you!

Pam

This book is all about fun reading it outloud.
My 2 year old giggled from the 2nd page all the way to the end and topped that off with a bunch of "1 MO PEAS!!!"
Not only is the "story" quirky, fun and exciting, but so are the great illustrations. They fit the story perfectly.
Another reviewer mentioned and I thought the same thing, it is slightly reminiscent of "The Monster at the End of the Book", one of my childhood favorites.
I think this is the kind of book that needs to be a staple in all kid libraries, home, school and town.
Edited to add: This is our first book we have to hide from our 2 year old. He becomes OBSESSED with wanting all of us to read it to him OVER AND OVER AND OVER...........

My two grand daughters were home when the mail was delivered and saw the box with this book! We sat down right away and read it. They are two and four and really enjoyed the interactive activities. They also love lady bugs so the lady bug narrator tickled their sense of humor!

We all managed to jump around the living room doing the chicken dance and making scary faces to scare the giant hungry frog away!

This is a really cute picture book. The goofy looking ladybug you see on the cover is our main character. He gets the kids to stand up, sit down, stand up....again, and then do a few silly things that will make your preschooler laugh. My youngest child is four and she really enjoyed this book. She liked it so much that she had me read it to her three times in a row and then asked me to read it again. When I told her that I needed to go write this review she started hugging the book and asked if she could keep it in her room. My daughter found this to be a laugh out loud funny book. She thought the little bug was silly and she loved all the goofy little faces the bug made.

I asked my daughter who is nearly eight to take a look at this book and tell me what she thought. She thought it was a funny book and she also liked the illustrations. She found the book to be incredibly easy to read. I think even a first grader who has been reading for a little while would be able to read this book easily. I like books that are easy readers like this because it means that my older daughter can read to her little sister (That makes both girls or my girls very happy.)

I think children between the ages of 2 to 5 would be the ones who will enjoy this book the most. I suspect that the humor would be lost on a child younger than 2, and after age 5, I think this book just comes across as babyish. It would be a great book for an early reader to read to younger siblings.

This book is wonderful! I teach a preschool autism class and we are always looking for something to activate the imagination. This book has simple illustrations that are not cluttered and confusing and it encourages them to imagine what is going on. We are able to review concepts like tiny, giant, faster, and scary. They get to participate in this story which is very fun. This is especially fun in a larger group circle time kind of setting.

"Can You Make a Scary Face?" is about a ladybug who's a fan of playing pretend and making funny faces. It uses the time-honored method of having the main character address the reader directly, encouraging them to interact with the story. But when a hungry frog shows up, what's this ladybug to do? Brightly illustrated and simple enough for the youngest readers -- sure to offer entertainment.

Can You Make a Scary Face by Jan Thomas is a bright and cheery book. The illustrations are simple and colorful. It looks like it would be a lot of fun in a group read aloud or with children of the right age to play along with the story. The bug give orders in a none too polite manner. For those offended, they could discuss that the orders are not polite and work out polite ways to make the requests after the first telling as is. Or better yet, just enjoy it and say what a rude bug, he is. I think it would be a young crowd pleaser.