Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse [Hardcover]

Judy Schachner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2005 | Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: P and up

The Siamese kitty boy with the gigantico imagination has returned for another loco adventure. In his room for a time-out, Skippyjon Jones lets his imagination take him to a shack where his Chihuahua friends are yipping and yapping and hiding out from the Bad Bobble-ito, who has taken over their doghouse. How El Skippito chills the Chihuahuas and banishes the Bobble-ito will make more amigos for this endearing and irresistible rascal who made his first appearance in Skippyjon Jones.

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Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3–The Siamese cat from Skippyjon Jones (Dutton, 2003) that thinks he's a Chihuahua returns in another adventure. Sent to his room by his mother for drawing on the walls, the feline puts on a mask and cape and then sings in a Spanish accent: "Oh, my name is Skippito Friskito/And I heard from a leetle birdito/That the doggies have fled/From the gobbling head/Who goes by the name Bobble-ito!" He then boards his skateboard and rolls into his closet, eventually arriving at a shack where he finds his Chihuahua friends. They explain that their home has been invaded ("Yesterday morning we left the house to buy some beans…when we returned, a Bobble-ito was in la casa perrito") and ask for his help. He solves the problem by grabbing the intruder and stuffing it into his pants. At story's end, Mama checks on Skippyjon and finds him wrapped in a blanket and talking to his sister's bobblehead doll. Schachner's ink-and-acrylic illustrations create the madcap surrealistic world Skippyjon inhabits, but the narrative offers little more than bad verse, confused plotting, and Taco Bell-style expressions–a fact underscored by the accompanying CD of the author reading her two Skippyjon tales. For rhyming dog stories, skip this doggerel and stay with the antics of Lynley Dodd's "Hairy Maclary" books (Tricycle).– Kathleen Whalin, York Public Library, ME
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Review

Charismatic, melodramatic, and acrobatic, Skippyjon Jones will bounce right off the page and into the listener's imagination. -- The Bulletin

Ole to the greatest poco perrito; he's as full of beans as in the first escapade. Mas, por favor. -- Kirkus Reviews

Schachner's dizzying images are the perfect accompaniment to the hilarious singsong text that describes the kitty's fantastical adventures... -- Time Out New York Kids

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Children's Books; 1st edition (April 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525472975
• ISBN-13: 978-0525472971
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 10.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #437,885 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Judith Byron Schachner has been illustrating and writing children's books since 1992 and has given numerous presentations in schools and libraries. Her workshops are designed to be warm and personal with a special regard for the less than stellar student.
"Kids love to review my rotten report cards and laugh out loud at a slide show involving 4 cats and a funeral. Teachers love the 'Seed Box' filled to the brim with a magical collection of 'Junk' to inspire the writer in all of us. Everyone loves to watch 'Don Juan Skippito Bumblito the Great Sword Fighter' come to life with pencil and paper. By the end of the day we all believe that the stories in our own lives are worth writing about."
Judith Byron Schachner grew up outside of Boston in the 1950's. Her early years were not easy: "Growing up we didn't have much money. My mother was very ill, and to make matters worse, I was extremely shy. All my teachers complained that 'Judith needs to speak up in class, Judith needs to improve in arithmetic, and Judith needs to finish her work on time.' But no one complained about my artwork. On paper I drew myself a world where mothers were healthy and teachers were kind. My life was perfection in pencil."
Judith graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1973 with a BFA in illustration and went straight into the "greeting card factories, which included a stint at Hallmark. For five years I designed cute cards, sad cards, funny cards, and wedding cards. I was not having fun; in fact I never wanted to pick up a paintbrush again."
Married life changed many things for Judith. One clear advantage for her was that "for the first time in many years I could step off the 9 to 5 treadmill and devote all my energy to creating a portfolio of children's book art. That was until two little baby girls were born. Then motherhood became my favorite new job. Over the years I read hundreds of books to my daughters. Inspired by the art and words I was moved once again to finish my portfolio and take it on the road to New York. Around the same time I met Donna Jo Napoli who convinced Dutton Children's Books to let me illustrate her novel, The Prince of the Pond," published in 1992.
In 1995 Judith wrote and illustrated her first picture book, Willy and May, and has turned out a number of projects since then. "The wonderful thing about my job is that one day I can be writing about history, as I did in Mr. Emerson's Cook. The next day I'm drawing a wacky old woman for I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie. Or I can bring to life a beloved pet cat in my book The Grannyman. I live in a constant state of 3rd grade bliss - making up stories and drawing pictures. Isn't that what we all did as children?"
Several years ago the great author Lloyd Alexander stood in Judith's back yard admiring her daughters' Viking ship (as Judith puts it, that's another story). Working with Lloyd Alexander has been a dream come true for Judith: "Never in my wildest fantasies did I ever think that my art would inhabit his world of words."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uh Huh Uh Huh Uh Huh (He's a yes man!), July 27, 2006

By 

ColleenKG "Cleen" (St. Charles, MO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse (Hardcover)

We picked this book up with a CD of the author reading the story through school last year. My son loves it still 6 months later & I find it pretty amusing myself. We have had side discussions about time out, not drawing on the walls, how watching tv is a privilege, using your imagination, and how sassing your parents ("You're not the boss of me!") will get a child in trouble for sure. My son even took it to preschool last year to share with his class. Since it is about cats, I think young girls would be entertained as well. As a parent, I recommend this book particularly if you can get it with the read-along DVD.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Definitely Different..., December 25, 2007

By 

amanooensis (Flyover Country) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse (Mass Market Paperback)

Your kid may be fascinated by this book without ever understanding why. Is that a good thing? Well, probably -- I'm one of those who feel that literature should stimulate and challenge the brain. But I think most kids might find it hard to follow the wild Spanglish wordplay, to get all the jokes, or even to follow the storyline at first.

Our young reader, whose reading skill is generally higher than the age range proposed here, had trouble figuring out whether Skippyjon really is a cat or a dog. That's partly due to the character's insistence on his alternate identity in the text, but it's also partly due to the fact that the illustrator has exaggerated the cat's doglike characteristics (notably the ears).

In this book Skippyjon is banished to his room for a timeout, where he uses the opportunity for a flight of fancy in his closet. His imagination is wild to the point of being surreal, in my view. That's not necessarily bad, but it is unusual, and you might need a second or third reading to work out just what is happening, and who the "characters" are, and why they are singing such strange and silly songs.

On one hand, the audacity of the text could be viewed as refreshing. But I am tempted to wonder whether Ms. Schachner dashed off this manuscript after sipping a bit too much Mezcal. Since she's an artist, one might say that would be in character, but I have no similar theory to explain why the publisher did not require more tweaking -- just a few things here or there to clarify the story and make it accessible to more readers.

Who knows, perhaps one needs to read the first book in the series to really "get it" -- but that's not a good thing, in my view. Anyway, it is fun to read aloud IF you are familiar with Spanish phonetics and Mexican foods. But if you don't know that "Holy Jalapeno" is alliterative, or how a small white blankie might resemble a tortilla, then you might find the book even more confusing.

Based on just this one book, I'm not ready to buy into the allegations of ethnic stereotyping. Chihuahua is a placename in Mexico, and the dogs are named after it. So, if an *imaginary* cat *imagines* that he is a chihuahua dog, then it makes sense for him to imagine that he speaks Spanish. But since he is NOT REALLY a Mexican dog, it makes sense that he'd only speak a limited amount of often-mangled Spanish -- which is what one finds in the book -- and that his understanding of Mexican culture is superficial.

But I'd want to see other books in this series before reaching a conclusion on that topic. My opinion of this one is that it is quite fresh and the artwork appropriate to the silly subject. And for the past day or so I have been watching a kid picking this book up over and over, often in preference to a pile of other books available. That must count for something!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse, May 23, 2006

By 

J. Anderson "happy mom of 3 beauties" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse (Hardcover)

My 6 year old daughter loves Skippy and we were both excited when we saw this, the second Skippyjon Jones book! The first book was fabulous! All of our family (dad, three daughters ranging in ages from 6-16, and myself) adored Skippy. The rhymes are fun to do and the book has a lot of energy, just like the first. Of course this book is similar to the first--it is a children's book and we bought it specifically because we liked the format of the first book. We are already anticipating the third book and will happily buy it when it comes out. Skippy is an extremely imaginative, high-energy, creative boy kitty who, like all little kids at one time or another, does naughty things. That doesn't make this a bad book, if anything, it should be a way to have a conversation with your young child about appropriate behavior. In the end, this was a fun, fast-paced fictional children's book that all three of my children laughed at and listened to when I read it--and that's saying something considering the older two are 11 and 16!!!!