The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Steven Kellogg (Illustrator) "How was your class trip to the farm?..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A top-notch choice that children will not want to put down."

Product Description

Jimmy's boa constrictor wreaks havoc on the class trip to a farm.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4-8
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Dial Press; 1st edition (November 1, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803717237
• ISBN-13: 978-0803717237
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #288,975 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Think of it as "Memento" done as a picture book, May 24, 2004

By	E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Long ago, when I was young and innocent in the ways of the world, I first heard of "The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash" on the popular PBS television show Reading Rainbow. After LeVar Burton introduced the child viewers to the nature of farms and farm life we listened to a reading of this book and I took a great deal of pleasure in its pictures and storytelling. Unfortunately, television was then (and remains today to be) incapable of displaying this book properly. Like all Kellogg illustrated creations, the story is filled to the brim with tiny delightful details that compete with one another for the viewer's attention. Reading this book on my own some twenty odd years later, I can finally settle down and enjoy this combination of delicate text and fantastic illustrations as I was menat to all those years ago.

A girl comes home to make herself a sandwich and chat with her mom after a long day on a class trip to the farm. The girl's story works backwards at the beginning. Slowly, tantalizingly, she leaks out the details of the trip. After all, it didn't really get exciting until the cow started crying. When asked, the girl admits that the cow was crying because the farmer hit a haystack on top of her. Why did he do that? Well, he was distracted by the pigs that had overrun the bus. And so it goes. Slowly the mother gets the full story of how fellow classmate Jimmy took his boa constrictor (a dew-eyed sweetie pie of a snake) to the farm and how all havok broke loose as a result. In the end, Jimmy left the boa there and adopted one of the pigs that never left the bus. The parting shot is of our narrator, suited up with Jimmy in silver racing outfits, barreling down a park path with the new pet pig in the back seat.

Kids reading this story get the double pleasure of watching chaos reigning in a farm setting and of reading a rollicking good story. Is there anything a kid likes more than to see a teacher covered in eggs? Or to view the cute animals that make up the farm? Kellogg has a way of drawing cats that I've never seen paralled. Who else could draw wide-eyed smiling felines as well as he does? Jimmy and the narrator apparently have a class of only eight children, so as the book progresses you can see how each person reacts to each and every situation. Kellogg isn't afraid of multiculturalism either, making the book a nice read-aloud for a variety of audiences. Originally published in 1980, you do have to contend with the clothing, an odd combination of 80s fashion and 70s hair, but that's the book's sole flaw (if it can even be called that).

If you have kids that enjoy reading about fiascos (and this is an especially brilliant higgledy-piggledy fiasco if ever there was one) then this book's a pip. From the flying eggs, to the screams of the farmer's wife, to the slow exhaustion of the school's bus driver, it reads brilliantly. Credit Trinka Hakes Noble's witty retelling in a format not usually found in children's literature. Altogether the combination of eloquent text and amusing pictures place this book in the higher echelons of picture books. A brilliant, fun, and rousing book.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Silly Fun, February 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash (Turtleback)

A funny romp through the farm with a boa constrictor that doesn't do what we would predict. Jimmy's boa slithers around the hen house, but does it eat any chickens? It does scare a lot of animals, but doesn't eat any of them. The silly thing eats the laundry (I guess because if it ate the animals it would upset the young readers). Anyway, the pictures and the story line are a delight to young readers, and I must admit I thought it funny, too. It has a cute , unexpected ending.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great adventure to the farm!, August 7, 2000

By	"iloveprovence" (Columbia, S.C. United States) - See all my reviews

When a little girl gets home from school, her mother asks her how the class trip to the farm went. Her daughter tells her it was kind of boring.......until the cow started crying. And then.....a magnificantly absurd story is unleashed about Jimmy's boa constrictor. Children love the sequence that unfolds as the child-narrator answers her mother's questions about what happens next. Delightful illustrations bring this classic from 1980 to life. This story will live on from year to year, generation to generation. Great fun! Great sequencing!