One Day, the End

August 1, 2015

PreS-Gr 1-A series of cleverly crafted tales involving a precocious girl doing ordinary things in a creative and energetic manner. Nine "shorter-than-ever" stories of a dozen words or less become considerably more sophisticated when readers delve into Koehler's dynamic cartoon illustrations. While brief, the text plays an integral role in each story. The first tale reads "One day...I went to school. I came home. The end." This spread shows the narrator involved in six different activities, including climbing over the letters of the word went while chasing a cat. Dotlich and Koehler are ideally teamed and offer a genius method of encouraging narrative dialogue, as well as attention to text. Not quite wordless, each simple story sets the stage for the illustrated adventures, which tell the rest of the story. The colorful images represent nine individual tales, yet there is a cohesiveness among them, with images linking back to earlier tales. VERDICT These very short stories are ideal for sharing, providing opportunities for word recognition and writing prompts, dialogic reading, and narrative discussion.-Gaye Hinchliff, King County Library System, WA

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 15, 2015
The short stories in this picture book rely heavily on accompanying art to fill in the spaces between beginnings and ends. Dotlich's book begins with the statement that "For every STORY there is a BEGINNING and an END, but what happens IN BETWEEN makes ALL the DIFFERENCE." Subsequent pages follow a little girl's brief adventures. Each begins, "One day..." and introduces a scenario, then concludes with "The End." In between opening and closing lines, Koehler's art provides visual narrative content for the meat of the story. For example, the first story reads: "One Day...I WENT TO SCHOOL. I CAME HOME. The End." Accompanying illustrations show the girl playing with a cat during her walk to school, then racing in late to school, then making a mess in science class, then walking dejectedly home, then cheering up at the sight of an ice cream truck, then feeling sad when her ice cream falls on the ground, and then feeling happy again because she apparently picked up the ice cream and plopped it back on the cone. Perhaps the book's conceit is supposed to inspire children to use words to "create their own middles" (as the dedication page reads), but describing the action of a picture that does just this seems quite a different task than imagining a middle by oneself. A well-intentioned conceit that risks undoing itself. (Picture book. 5-8)

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October 1, 2015
Preschool-G A young girl declares, For every story there is a beginning and end, but what happens in between makes all the difference. She then presents eight short, very short, shorter-than-ever stories, consisting of about 12 words each and spanning two to four pages in length. Each tells a different child-size adventure that begins with One day . . . and closes with The end. Retro, digitally created illustrations are clear and uncluttered, yet provide ample details that allow readers to fill in the gaps of these oh-so-brief tales. For example, story one reads: One day . . . I went to school. I came home. The end. However, the illustrations show that the narrator was late to school because she was playing with her orange cat; she made a mess in science class; and she got an ice cream cone from a truck on her way home, which she dropped. Ultimately, this entertaining collection shows that storytelling can be easily accomplished and can consist of more than just words.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

July 20, 2015
“For every story there is a beginning and an end,” Dotlich (All Aboard!) writes, “but what happens in between makes all the difference.” She and Koehler (How to Cheer Up Dad) prove this premise nine different ways in ultra-brief stories that begin with “One day,” conclude with “The End,” and follow the energetic, inquisitive storyteller in between. Koehler builds each story around an interaction between the giant typography and the plot, so that a very simple recounting (“One day... I went to school. I came home. The End.”) becomes far sillier and involved. The girl chases her cat around the word “went”; “school” gets splattered with pink goo from a chemistry lab; and “came” appears as the sprinkles-covered lettering on an ice-cream truck that holds the reward for a long day. The action can be difficult to track, and the punch lines don’t always hit their marks, but Koehler’s drawings have an easygoing sense of whimsy as they highlight just how much can happen in the briefest of stories. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown. Illustrator’s agent: Tracey Adams, Adams Literary.