Jon Scieszka is in a word-hilarious! He was funny, kind and gracious enough to grant an interview after a day full of school visits and his library event. I was even lucky enough to give him a ride back to his hotel-WOW! I know, it’s the little moments of bonding with an author that I love best.
Why am I sounding so giddy? Because I’m SO excited to be going to NCTE and ALAN this year to meet (and hopefully interview) all of my favorite authors!
I definitely encourage you to check out all of Jon Scieszca’s books-from my favorite, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, to his compilations of other authors in his Guys Read series. Plus, I now have to read his Spaceheadz series in which three aliens come to earth, disguise themselves as two kids and a hamster, and befriend a middle school boy. When the alien leader, guised as a hamster, explains his world domination plan to Michael, he, of course speaks hamster; therefore, the entire chapter is written in Major Fluffy’s single word of communication: eek.
To add to the hilarity, in each book, Major Fluffy becomes a different animal, so there is at least one chapter written in monosyllabic gibberish in every novel-quite a funny yet poignant take on how we communicate with our words and inflections. Scieszka has even created an App entitled “Fluffy Speaks!” that you can download for FREE and it will translate whatever you say into “hamster.” I need to try saying “Erudite Lexicon” into the translator and see what happens. You could have your students try to translate from hamster back into English…seems like they would find out quickly the reason why we need so much vocabulary!