April Fool! Watch Out at School!
Kindergarten-Grade 3—Gilbert and his friends are back and ready to celebrate April Fool's Day. The book is filled with the tomfoolery that tickles children's funny bones: warnings of untied shoelaces, plastic spiders, and gummy worms in apples. The trouble begins when Lewis, Gilbert's nemesis, finds a ready target for his pranks in the bespectacled protagonist. He enjoys taunting Gilbert and plays a more mean-spirited trick than the others by placing an "I smell" sign on Gilbert's back on their way to lunch in the cafeteria. Gilbert is able to pay back Lewis by making him stew the entire afternoon waiting for a trick to be played on him. As the school day ends, Gilbert tells Lewis "Gotcha" and reveals there was no trick at all. The cartoon illustrations abound with visual tricks that observant viewers are sure to notice. DeGroat continues to show that she has a keen sense of classroom dynamics and the ability to connect with readers and their world. A popular choice for seasonal read-alouds.—Maura Bresnahan, High Plain Elementary School, Andover, MACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.