Anthony and the Girls

My son loves the book. They read the book in school and he talked about it so we bought it.

By and large, reviewing children's books is difficult work. Now before you start playing me a sad sad song on the world's smallest violin, let me explain. I'm one of those weirdoes who likes to walk into a book fresh. I'm so easily influenced by the opinions of others that if I read a negative review of a book, a film, a street name, etc. I have a very hard time looking at it with an uncritical eye. For this reason, I never know whether or not I should read as many reviews of children's books as possible, or if I should leave it all up to chance and find out on my own whether or not one book sucks and another is the greatest accomplishment of pen to paper in this, the twenty-first century. Take, "Anthony and the Girls", for example. Before I even laid eyes on the puppy I read the School Library Journal review of it (featured above) and it was scathing. I write for SLJ myself so I know just how hard it is to write a noteworthy review for a 26 page book. In fact, had I relied on just that piece I probably would never have gone out seeking "Anthony and the Girls" on my own. It was by the luck of providence itself that the story fell into my lap and further providence that I in turn fell in love with it. This is a great book, but it may well be one of those titles that parents find a heckuva lot funnier than their kiddie cohorts. There are four things you should know about Anthony. First of all, Anthony is cool. Why? Because Anthony is in possession of a bucket, a shovel, and a really big (toy) car. You would think this would garner the boy a lot of attention. It does not. In fact, what Anthony wants most in the world is to play with the girls in the sandbox. The girls, however, don't take any notice of our hero. He can jump high, and lift heavy branches, and even go down a slide headfirst on his tummy "eyes closed". But do you think the girls even care? Nope. They never even look up. Angry at the lack of attention Anthony turns his attention elsewhere, building a "house" out of shovel, car, branch, a chair, and his bucket. Unfortunately the house collapses and Anthony ends up crying. This the girls notice and after a comforting cookie he's allowed into their sandbox to play. "Anthony is happy". Then he looks over and sees a boy with a much bigger hat, a much bigger car, and a much bigger shovel. The last words in the book are "Here comes Luke". In the School Library Journal review it is pointed out that the lesson of this book is "thoroughly negative" because Anthony gets what he wants through crying. I definitely see the reviewer's point, but actually the book doesn't set up the situation in this way. Anthony doesn't start bawling because the girls aren't looking at him and then gets rewarded with attention. Instead, Anthony starts bawling because his makeshift house falls down when he's finally forgotten all about the girls. There's a world of difference between a book that says that if you cry when you want some