Customer Reviews

Iggy Peck, Architect

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4 star:		(4)
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2 star:		(1)
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Hands-down one of the best picture books of 2007, IGGY PECK, ARCHITECT, has it all -- ingenious storyline, clever text, spectacular illustrations -- resulting in a hilarious read-aloud for kids and grown-ups alike. Don't miss this one!

As an elementary art teacher, I am always looking for fun, educational books I can use in the classroom. This is by far one of the best books I've ever read! Most of my 4th and 5th grade students hate reading or listening to stories. This week I showed them the book and asked if they were interested in reading it with me. At first, only 2 or 3 students out of every class raised their hands. I asked them if I could read just one page... if they didn't like it, I agreed not to read the rest. After reading the first page, the entire class laughed and begged me to read more! I was so excited so share this book with them, and even more excited that they wanted to read. The students liked it so much they took turns reading it independently and asked where they could purchase a copy. This book is a great way to get students interested in reading... and architecture!

After reading this book, my students couldn't wait to learn more about famous architects and buildings. They are really excited about becoming little architects themselves over the next few weeks!

I can't even begin to thank Andrea Beaty and David Roberts for this amazing book! It's clever, funny, and educational, and the illustrations are absolutely beautiful. I teach 700 students a week, kindergarten through 5th, and this book was a huge hit will everyone! I definitely recommend this book to children and adults alike!

We loved this book! We heard it at a local story hour. Afterwards, we went out and purchased some graph paper. The kids went to town designing their own buildings and pretending to be architects like Iggy Peck. We HIGHLY recommend this book. Not only does it spark the imagination, but it is very humorous. The part about Iggy building a tower out of diapers and glue made my kids roll around on the floor laughing!

You are a children's librarian. Your job is simple. People ask you for books. You find books. People ask you for movies. You find movies. It's all pretty basic, really. You get requests from teachers too, once in a while. "Oh, we're doing a unit on tadpoles." "What have you got in the way of circus titles?" And, most dreaded of all, "We're doing a community workers unit". In my particular library system, once a year the teachers will ask for books regarding different occupations you might find in the community. Firemen, and police workers, and vets. All that good stuff. Of course, sometimes the kids want books that talk about what their parents do. And if you work in a library located in the heart of New York City, there's a pretty good chance that that's gonna mean one very special job: Architects. Now go and name me all the picture book architectural stories you can think of. Go on! I'll wait here until you're ready. Thought of a whole bunch? No? Thought of a few? Thought of one? Well, obviously you thought of one since you know what this review was of from the start. Yes, "Iggy Peck, Architect", is (as far as my limited experience informs me) one of the very few books out there dealing with a kid who is fated to follow a path of structural bliss.

It was pretty clear right from the start that Iggy Peck wasn't your normal toddler. No, by age two he'd discovered how to construct towers out of diapers (interesting, if not particularly sanitary). By three he used fruit to create his constructions, and by the time he hit the second grade he was getting more and more creative. That's when he got into Ms. Greer's class. Ms. Greer had once suffered an unfortunate incident in a very tall building, and the result is that she felt from there on in that, "all building-lovers were nuts." Forbidden to build, Iggy's spirit is crushed. That is, until the day the class is trapped on a small island with little hope of escape. Little hope, that is, until Iggy's skills prove useful when it comes to escape.

Of course I can already see the wild glint in the eyes of the parents who will hope against hope that by buying this book they will be able to coerce their own little Johnny or Jill into wanting to be an architect someday too. You can't hardly blame `em, neither. I mean, the combined efforts of author Andrea Beaty and illustrator David Roberts make this particular occupation look remarkably cool. Roberts bears much of the credit for this, I'll wager. His style appears to be nothing so much as Gerald McBoing Boing meets Frank Lloyd Wright. And I will wager good money that Mr. Roberts has probably flown under your radar until now. At this point in time he was probably best known for his Cinderella: An Art Deco Love Story, which gives you a fairly good sense of his tastes and styles. In "Iggy Peck", Roberts has channeled the style of the late 50s, early 60s instead. Iggy is a chipper soul with a thick patch of hair that flies straight out from the top of his head like a plane from a landing strip. The women in his life, that being his mother and his teacher Miss Lila Greer, sport some remarkable up-dos of their own. That alongside their natty sweaters, single print dresses, and high-button shoes, gives the book a kind of grounding in the history of American design. Fortunately for us, Roberts has not traveled so far back that he has failed to create a nicely multi-ethnic classroom. And might I say, much of the fun for grown-ups reading this book centers on getting to watch the clothes and shoes of the other kids in Iggy's class. Hairstyles too.

Roberts makes use of watercolors, pen and ink (on Arches paper, no less), and a whole smattering of graph paper as well. I was initially going to say that he did a lot of mixed media, but on closer inspection I see that this is not the case. Roberts only gives the impression of mixed media (no small feat) and his use of color and form is fabulous. When we see a younger Miss Greer staring down from the ninety-fifth floor of her building (we know it's the ninety-fifth floor since the elevator says that the elevator is on the 3rd to the 6th power floor), she's the only bright yellow spot visible against a gray, lifeless landscape. Also, due to the fact that the author is asking Mr. Roberts to construct a suspension bridge out of "boots, tree roots and strings, fruit roll-ups and things", as well as castles from chalk, bridges out of pancakes, and even chapels from apples, I'd say that he does a pretty good job. Heck, the book even turns the words on the page into wavy smell lines when the plot calls for such a thing. How's that for dedication?

The story we find here is entirely reliant on liking your protagonist and appreciating his struggle. And you do like Iggy. Iggy's a pretty cool dude. A little too focused on a single all-consuming passion, maybe, but at least he knows what he likes. Ms. Andrea Beatty offers enough details here to get kids interested in not only Iggy's trials but that of his young teacher as well. The defining moment in Miss Greer's life, when she was trapped in an elevator with a French circus troupe, is sufficiently horrific to make anyone understand her dislike of tall buildings. The fact that the book is written in verse is a tough one though. If you're going to walk that line then you need to be just as careful as possible when it comes to scansion. So it is that lines like this sometimes had to give me pause: " `We're trapped here! Oh my! Alas, kids, good-bye!' / Her eyeballs rolled back in her head. / She dropped to the ground with a vague groaning sound. / (Luckily fainted - not dead)." I mean, you can make it work if you give a brief pause before the word "luckily", but anyone reading this book aloud is going to have to read it through a couple times before trying it out on the kids.

All that said, it's a treat. Original and enjoyable and lots of fun to read. And hey, if you want to use it to convince the youth of America that architecture is a fun and interesting occupation, by all means go ahead.

I first saw this book in the children's gift shop of the Smithsonian's National Gallery of Art, and have since purchased three copies as gifts. It's very witty, and I love the modern look of the drawings. It's very enjoyable to read as an adult, so reading it over and over (and over!) to your child won't drive you to hide the book. This would make a fun gift for children of architects.

"Young Iggy Peck is an architect and has been since he was two, when he built a great tower--in only an hour--with nothing but diapers and glue." Thus begins Iggy Peck, Architect, the story of a creative little boy whose talent is underappreciated--especially by his second grade teacher.

This is a wonderful story that encourages children to think outside of the box. Iggy uses unusual mediums to achieve his masterpieces: dirty diapers, fruit roll-ups, underwear and chalk, to name a few. And though he is discouraged in his endeavors, he still broke down the hardest of hearts when his projects became useful.

Delightfully illustrated, Iggy Peck, Architect is a hit with the kids. I was a bit surprised how much they like it, as the illustrations are a bit unusual in both color and proportion. I guess it goes to show that "unusual" isn't bad. I'd say they perfectly complement the text, but I think it can more be said that the text perfectly complements the illustrations.

As a read aloud, the text is doable, however, the cadence is slightly off in places. I found myself swallowing syllables in odd places and still getting it wrong several read-throughs later. But, the story is so utterly charming, as a whole, that it more than compensated for the imperfect meter.

Armchair Interviews says: This book is witty, scrumptious fun for all ages.

First off, these are the best illustrations I have ever seen! The story is very sweet and melodic--an instant favorite.

Great book! Being an architect, Iggy Peck is a great "first impression" of "what daddy does after he drops me off from school." I read Iggy Peck to my 4-year old daughter at bedtime, and she loves the story, but why does Iggy save the day with a shoestring bridge and not a building? Nevertheless, the story shows that creativity does have a place in education.

Lastly, I felt so delighted to come home from another busy day and see on the refrigerator a piece of paper from her school that is written/scribbled "When I grow up I want to be an ARCHITECT." I think, does Iggy have anything to do with this?

Cheers!

Andrea Beaty's IGGY PECK, ARCHITECT tells of an architect who has been one 'since age two' when he builds a great tower in an hour of diapers and glue. So goes a rollicking, fun rhyme about a young, unappreciated architect who us unappreciated by his second-grade teacher, until a field trip helps recognize his unique talents. David Roberts' drawings are a fun addition to a pointed story of young genius.

Beaty, Andrea. Iggy Peck, Architect. Illustrated by David Roberts. Abrams Books for Young Readers. 2007

This is a lively and amusing story written in rhyming verse about a little boy who loves to build architectural structures like bridges and buildings out of whatever materials are at hand, "Young Iggy Peck is An Architect and has been since he was two, when he built a great tower--in only an hour--with nothing but diapers and glue." His mother is extremely proud of him until she notices that the diapers are used. Iggy builds a Sphinx out of dirt clods and the St. Louis Arch out of pancakes; one humorous illustration shows Iggy who is wearing a shirt but no pants building the sphinx, a white cat that serves as the model is at his feet, and a neighbor is gesturing angrily. In school, Iggy ignores his teacher and spends his time creating projects like an elaborate castle that he builds using chalk; his well-behaved classmates only dare to take peeks at him. When his teacher who has an hour-glass figure, her hair in a bun, and a heavily made up face throws out his books on architecture and discourages his creative endeavors, Iggy sits at his desk looking very bored. One day when the class is on a field trip to an island and the pedestrian bridge collapses, Iggy comes to the rescue by directing a successful effort to build a new footbridge out of things like shoe laces, and other "things (some of which one should not mention)." The quirky illustrations, created with watercolor, ink and pencil on Arches paper and graph paper, capture the humor of the text perfectly and include many delightful details: the cat's food is formed into an arch, birds play tug of war with shoe laces, and one boy is depicted carrying sticks with a tiny bird right behind him also carrying sticks. This oversized book is nicely designed: soft lavender inside cover pages and a lot of bright white space for an uncluttered look. Practice before you read aloud since the verses do not always scan consistently; this should be a hit with early elementary grades.