Steffanie Lorig is an award-winning graphic designer and founder of Art with Heart, a nonprofit that uses books to helps kids in crisis. Her therapy-based activity books have helped over 30,000 kids throughout North America and beyond.
Richard Lorig spends a lot of his time at the theater, designing sets, makeup, and costumes. Because he was well-behaved while growing up, he has been rewarded with a lovely wife, a clever son, and two very cool dogs. They live in Seattle.
Amanda Shepherd loves to draw kids having fun and being wild. Originally from Seattle, she now lives with her husband and Kate the Kat in Scottsdale, Arizona.
As preschoolers will undoubtedly note with glee, the title of this
book should be "Such a Silly Mommy!" After all, it's Mommy who
can't manage to go on an outing without bringing home an animal
instead of her offspring. Whatever the destination, the refrain is
always the same: "But there was a hitch.../ my baby got switched,"
and clueless Mommy ends up with, say, a chimpanzee, while Baby
takes up residence in the monkey house. Baby is always retrieved
with the turn of a page, but the spreads give readers plenty of
opportunity to savor his briefly unsupervised cavorting in a comic,
exotic setting. Exuberant, hand-lettered text practically demands
audience participation on the animal noises ("oo... oo... ee...
ee..." for the chimps). Paired with this husband-and-wife team,
Shepherd (Fiona Loves the Night) illustrates in the Nadine Bernard
Westcott vein; she revels in buoyantly hued silliness and goofy
visual asides. A firm hand, however, guides these compositions,
most evidently in Shepherd's use of thick, textured fields of
color, and readers won't get overwhelmed. Publishers Weekly,
starred review The hapless mother in this bouncy rhyming tale just
can't keep track of her silly baby: he gets switched with the
chimpanzee at the zoo, with the dancing bear at the circus, with a
lazy sow at the farm, and with a buffalo at the Wild West show.
Then, when she finally gets the child home for a nap, all the
animals follow. The flexible tot makes himself right at home in
every new environment, swinging from the ropes with the monkeys,
walking the tightrope, rolling in the mud, and twirling a lasso.
Each time he greets Mom again, he adds a new phrase learned from
his animal friends, for a cumulative festival of animal sounds that
storytime listeners will love. Shepherd's bright, wildly
cartoonlike oil paintings perfectly reflect the wackiness of the
text. Pair this with Audrey Wood's Silly Sally (Harcourt, 1992) for
a simply silly storytime. School Library Journal A perplexed mom
has trouble returning home from outings with her own baby in this
boisterous debut from Team Lorig. Rollicking rhymes take readers
around town as the pair visit the zoo, a circus, a farm and a Wild
West show. Each time, though, Mom brings home an animal in place of
her baby. "The circus came, I took him there. / We laughed at
clowns with funny hair. / But there was a hitch . . . / my baby got
switched, / and I went home with a dancing bear!" She returns the
next day to swap them back, although by then her baby has picked up
the mannerisms of the animal he has been impersonating. Repetitive
elements make this a great one for shared reading. Shepherd's
exuberant oil illustrations match the preposterousness of the text
perfectly, cleverly building in visual cues to help readers guess
what animal might be going home with Mom. A lively flight into
imagination-mothers may never look at outings the same way again.
Kirkus Reviews
KIRKUS REVIEWS
Repetitive elements make this a great one for shared reading.
Shepherd s exuberant oil illustrations match the preposterousness
of the text perfectly, cleverly building in visual cues to help
readers guess what animal might be going home with Mom. A lively
flight into imagination--mothers may never look at outings the same
way again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
..The spreads give readers plenty of opportunity to savor his
briefly unsupervised cavorting in a comic, exotic setting.
Exuberant, hand-lettered text practically demands audience
participation...
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL
...a cumulative festival of animal sounds that storytime listeners
will love. Shepherd s bright, wildly cartoonlike oil paintings
perfectly reflect the wackiness of the text.
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