Extra Yarn [Hardcover]

Mac Barnett (Author), Jon Klassen (Illustrator)

Book Description

Release date: January 17, 2012 | Age Range: 4 - 8 years | Lexile Measure: 620L (What's this?)

Winner of a 2013 Caldecott Honor and the 2012 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Excellence in Picture Books.

It looks like an ordinary box full of ordinary yarn.
But it turns out it isn't.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month for Kids, January 2012: A monochrome town gets a change of color and attitude with the help of a box of yarn and a girl named Annabelle. From the seemingly endless box of Extra Yarn Annabelle knits clothing for everyone around her, tempering the ill-tempered, and creating beautifully patterned warmth for people, animals, and objects, alike. When a greedy clothes-loving archduke tries to buy--then steal--the box for himself, he discovers that ill-gotten gains bear no fruit--or in this case, yarn. Mac Barnett’s elegant and clever story is complemented by Jon Klassen’s illustrations, and fans of I Want My Hat Back will enjoy the familiar faces that show up in this picture book about the magical properties of kindness and generosity.--Seira Wilson

From Booklist

*Starred Review* This understated picture book is certain to spark the imagination of every child who comes upon it, and what could be better than that? Annabelle lives in a black-and-white world, where everything is drab, drab, drab. So imagine her surprise when she finds a box filled with yarn of every color. Armed with the yarn and knitting needles, she makes herself a sweater, but after she finishes, she finds that she has extra yarn left over. After knitting a sweater for her dog, her classmates, and various (hilariously unsurprised) bunnies and bears, she still has extra yarn. So, Annabelle turns her attention to things that don’t usually wear wool cozies: houses and cars and mailboxes. Soon an evil archduke with a sinister mustache “who was very fond of clothes” hears about the magic box of never-ending yarn, and he wants it for his own. Reading like a droll fairy tale, this Barnett-Klassen collaboration is both seamless and magical. The spare, elegant text and art are also infused with plenty of deadpan humor. Klassen (I Want My Hat Back, 2011) uses ink, gouache, and digital illustration to fashion Annabelle’s world out of geometric shapes, set against dark, saturated pages, and against white as the town comes to colorful, stitched life. Quirky and wonderful, this story quietly celebrates a child’s ingenuity and her ability to change the world around her. Grades K-2. --Ann Kelley

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Product Details

• Age Range: 4 - 8 years
  
• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Balzer + Bray; First Edition edition (January 17, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780061953385
• ISBN-13: 978-0061953385
• ASIN: 0061953385
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (99 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Children's Books > Sports & Games > Activities & Toys
  • #5 in Books > Children's Books > Sports & Games > Sports
  • #19 in Books > Children's Books > Sports & Games > Activity Books

More About the Author

Born to non-farmers in a California farming community, Mac now lives near San Francisco. He's on the board of directors of 826LA, a nonprofit writing center for students in Los Angeles, and he founded the Echo Park Time Travel Mart, a convenience store for time travelers (Seriously).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Extra Cute January 27, 2012

By Valerie A. Baute

Format:Hardcover

Extra Yarn is a very sweet story with adorable illustrations. A girl lives in a dreary world until she finds some colorful yarn in a box. It seems to be quite magical as she can knit garments for everyone! She even goes beyond that and starts knitting for animals and even buildings, turning her black and white world quite colorful. When someone tries to buy the box from her, there is no price that she would take for it, so that person decides to take it instead! What is going to happen? You have to read to find out, but I will tell you that it is a wonderful ending.

The illustrations in this book are by Jon Klassen. He has a very distinct style. He actually just wrote and illustrated a book, I Want My Hat Back, where the main character is a bear. The book is now a Theodore Seuss Geisel honor book and the bear makes a wonderful appearance in this book.

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lane Smith is right... February 22, 2012

By B. Stamper

Format:Hardcover

...this is a "perfect" book.

For heaven's sake, it's a kids' book about yarn bombing. Need I really say more?

34 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Review: Extra Yarn January 23, 2012

By T. Jonker

Format:Hardcover

I've never knitted anything in my life. Not a thing. But I would imagine there's a lot of satisfaction in creating an item of clothing out of nothing and a ball of yarn. Of fabricating something, however minor. This concept of making an impact on the world, one small piece at a time is at the core of Extra Yarn. Full of beauty and humor, it's a book that will likely stick with you after the story is done.

When Annabelle finds a box filled with multicolored yarn, she does what you might expect - she knits a sweater. But there is extra yarn, so she knits sweaters for others - classmates and teachers and even animals. Still: more yarn. She begins to cover her entire cold, drab town in rainbow knitwear - including buildings and trees. The change is dramatic. Before long, an archduke arrives and offers Annabelle riches in exchange for the box. When she refuses, the archduke has it stolen. But it is for naught - he finds the box empty and angrily tosses it in the sea, where it eventually returns to Annabelle.

The conclusion will have kids asking the question - why was the box empty for the archduke? Camp #1 will say "well, the yarn just happened to run out", while Camp #2 will likely infer that the box was empty because it needs Annabelle for the magic to happen. Count me a member of the latter group.

Some subtle humor comes into play, particularly when Annabelle begins knitting for the benefit of inanimate objects, covering mailboxes, houses, and pickup trucks in sweaters. This sort of absurdity fits with Barnett and Klassen's previous work.

The ink, gouache, and digital illustrations (which bring to mind Alice and Martin Provensen's work in Caldecott-winner A Glorious Flight) are understated and gorgeous. Klassen's previous book I Want My Hat Back garnered wide acclaim with stark illustrations (and a wicked ending). Here the starkness is contrasted by the technicolor yarn. I understand Klassen created the distinctive sweater texture by scanning an actual sweater and digitally tweaking it - an inventive, and visually rewarding touch.

This isn't a book solely for fans of the off-beat - it's a story everyone can savor.