Flip's Fantastic Journal

Flip's Fantastic Journal

From Kirkus Reviews DeCesare has worked a canny little trick with this encourage-readers-to-write book. Flip the cartoon dog, on pages that resemble lined notepaper, offers a hangdog litany: he has no father and only one friend and a overbearing sister and he doesn't really like writing in his journal (which his teacher demands he do every day, including weekends) and he is having a boring Saturday because his friend has to baby-sit and his sister's friends think he is too small to play with, etc. Suddenly Flip realizes that there is a world to be created in his journal. Didn't his teacher say that he could make up the stories he wrote? Flip unleashes his humor and fantasies, starts writing and drawing in full-color, and gets back at his sister, finds not one but several toys in his cereal, learns that his friend is free to play after all, becomes a great soccer player, finds zillions of dollars in his pocket, and more. DeCesare avoids the re-entry problem when Flip returns to planet Earth from his imaginings, and so as an inspirational guide for would-be writers this book loses a step, but there is no contest when it comes to which of Flip's two Saturdays readers will want to share with him. (Picture book. 6-9) -- Copyright