Marco Goes to School

May 28, 2012
Marco the red parrot wanted to do everything (except sleep) in Too Busy Marco. His mind is still awhirl in this school-themed follow-up: while Marco’s teacher, Mrs. Peachtree, drones on (“Monday Tuesday Chewsday Chumday Humday Doo-dah-day”), his thoughts are on becoming the first bird on the moon (“Must get to moon,” reads the wired bird’s thought bubble at naptime). Chast isn’t interested in messages or lessons—Marco daydreams, has fun at school, and that’s about it—and her scribbly ink-detailed watercolors and Marco’s left-field observations convey his singular perspective with abundant humor. Ages 4–8. Agent: Jin Auh, the Wylie Agency.

June 1, 2012
In his second outing, the parrot with big dreams does his daydreaming at school. "Skool" is a completely foreign word to Marco, who at first wonders if it might be something to eat. On his first day, the little red parrot finds his teacher's flowered pants quite fascinating, but even better is the astronaut toy atop the bookshelf, which suddenly turns Mrs. Peachtree's speech into "blah, blah, blah," and sparks a "First Bird Reaches Moon" fantasy. Playtime and a block tower to reach the moon cannot come soon enough for the jittery, imaginative bird. Block basketball (aka cleaning up) distracts him from the tower's failure, and a turn on the swing with a new friend just may spark a new idea on how to achieve his dream. Chast's world is a little like Stuart Little's. The parrot acts like a human child, but everyone around him is an actual Homo sapiens. Chast's watercolors emphasize this dichotomy, the tiny parrot dwarfed by his enormous (by comparison) classmates. Cute is not a word that would apply to her spreads, which are filled with toothy kids with limited facial expressions. This lacks much of the humor of Marco's first outing (Too Busy Marco, 2010), does little (or nothing) to allay children's fears about school, and touts a character who daydreams during lessons instead of listening to his teacher: Skip. (Picture book. 4-8)

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June 1, 2012

PreS-K-The little parrot at the center of Too Busy Marco (S & S, 2010) is back, and this time, just as he is feeling bored at home, his human mom sends him to school, explaining that it is a place where children go to "learn things." Marco's not so sure about this "school" thing and spends most of his time daydreaming about going to the Moon. Finally, it's playtime, and he enlists his classmates to help him build a tower of blocks to the planet. When it comes crashing down, his teacher steps in to brighten his day with a game of block basketball. Though the story meanders as wildly as Marco's attention span, it lands on a comforting truth-regardless of what goes wrong on his first day, Marco finds a friend. Chast's busy watercolors invoke the constant whirring of Marco's overactive imagination.-Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD

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