Until I Met Dudley: How Everyday Things Really Work

Chris Riddell was born in Liverpool and is a highly-acclaimed writer and illustrator of children's books. He has been shortlisted twice for the Kate Greenaway Award. He is also a cartoonist for The Observer. He lives in Brighton.

Roger McGough is a highly-acclaimed and much-loved poet and writer, and has been awarded an OBE for his contribution to poetry. His many titles include Bad Bad Cats, winner of the 1998 Signal Poetry Award and The Ring of Words, which was shortlisted for the BBC Blue Peter Book Award 2001.

To visit Roger McGough's website clickhere

Kindergarten-Grade 4. The book opens with a young girl's statement, "I thought I knew how a toaster worked...," and a humorous double-page elaboration of her idea. The illustrations show a friendly dragon toasting the bread with his fiery breath, aided by "toast elves" and assorted cogs, treadmills, and conveyor belts. Her explanation ends with the phrase, "Until I met Dudley...." The pencil-wielding, bespectacled dog gives a proper rundown of toaster technology on the following two pages. Numbered boxes of text outline the basic steps peppered with "POWs!" and "BOINGs!" to keep the tone light. The words surround a diagram of the toaster and its most important parts. This pattern continues as the girl describes the workings of four other household machines. Each of the silly scenarios is followed by Dudley's informative presentations. The dog avoids detailed discussion of more complicated elements such as electricity or hydraulic rams, but focuses instead on what the most basic moving pieces in each machine do. Young readers will laugh at the girl's ridiculous thoughts, but most will also learn something. Riddell's cartoons are lively, particularly those of the animal characters, and the factual pages are chock-full without being cluttered. Though the information here is less detailed than in such books as Alan Snow's How Dogs Really Work (1993) and The Truth About Cats (1996, both Little, Brown), John Kelly's The Robot Zoo (Turner, 1994; o.p.), and Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen's "Magic School Bus" series (Scholastic), the mixture of cartoon humor and real facts has a similar appeal.?Steven Engelfried, West Linn Public Library, OR
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