Danny McGee Drinks the Sea

March 1, 2017
How does a boy drink up the whole sea?Why, with a very long, red-and-white-striped straw, of course! Danny, a white boy with curly red hair, and his sister, Frannie, with bright red frizzy pigtails, travel to the beach in their little shiny red play car. When Danny boasts that he can drink the sea, Frannie doubts him but "fetches" him a straw at his request to aid in the strange marine operation. Danny not only swallows the sea, he starts swallowing everything in the world. In rhyming verse, he swallows a bird and a bee, a fly and a flea. He swallows the author ("And he swallowed the people and that includes me. / And I'm writing this book inside Danny McGee."). He even swallows "America, land of the free. / And he swallowed up London, chim, chim, cher-ee!" Only Frannie is left to tell the tale and swallow him. She makes her vengeful pronouncement on the whole adventure: "Little brothers can be SO annoying sometimes." The comic, mixed-media illustrations feature collage elements such as the author himself reading this book, photographed French fries from a chip shop in a simply drawn newspaper cone on the London page, and a realistic image of the Empire State Building, with a cartoon King Kong wearing a red, white, and blue I [heart] NY hat. Hyperbole, verbal and visual, reigns in this zany world. (Picture book. 4-8)

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May 1, 2017

PreS-Gr 1-On a trip to the beach, Danny McGee declares that he can drink the whole sea. His sister Frannie tells him to prove it, and so starts a bold new take on "The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly." Stanton's writing has a childlike exuberance, racing away at a fast clip as the gluttonous boy gulps down the sea and swallows a tree, a bird, and a bee. And a TV. And the author himself, depicted as a photograph rather than an illustration. The story is very funny when read aloud with enthusiasm, and children will be in absolute fits by the surprise twist at the end. Even more impressive, though, is how Stanton maintains a single-sound rhyme throughout (with the exception of the concluding line). Given this constraint, it is not surprising that he resorts to inventing a word. However, in a humorous nod, he acknowledges his readers' intelligence ("And I know you think there's no such thing as a swee") before proceeding to define the made-up term. Layton's scrawly naive style is a perfect complement to this crazy tale and its show-off protagonist. Placement of the images, and the words that dance around them, fits the overall presentation and will assist any who try to read the title. VERDICT A riotous rhyming book that just begs to be read aloud in a storytime setting.-Rachel Forbes, Oakville Public Library, Ont.

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