Saddle up with Flat Stanley

Ever since Stanley was flattened by a bulletin board, every trip is an adventure!

The whole Lambchop family is off to see Mount Rushmore. But when Flat Stanley and his brother, Arthur, team up with a scrappy cowgirl named Calamity Jasper, their vacation turns into the Wild West experience of a lifetime. Pretty soon, they find themselves in a real tight spot—even for a flat boy like Stanley!

School Library Journal

Gr 2–4—Capitalizing on the extremely popular (and more than 40-year-old) character created by Jeff Brown, Pennypacker’s new travel-themed series features the same tongue-in-cheek humor and earnest, goody-two-shoes sensibility of the original. Here, the flattened-by-a-bulletin-board boy and the rest of the Lambchop family go on vacation to Mount Rushmore, where Stanley and his brother share an adventure with a young gold miner named Calamity Jasper. Stanley’s unique abilities allow him to shine as a hero, causing some friction with Arthur, but in the end, they work together to save the day. Readers will find authenticity and humor in the siblings’ rivalry, and Calamity Jasper, with her over-the-top Western dialogue, is a perfect slapstick foil to the boys. As an added bonus, interesting historical and geographical information is included in the story and related facts are appended. Though the modernized, cartoon pencil sketches are not as delightfully ridiculous as the artwork in the original series, they integrate well with the plot. Educational and fun, this action-filled tale makes a great choice for early-chapter-book collections; it will surely cause a resurgence of interest in the original series, as well as a desire to read the subsequent installations in the reboot.—Nicole Waskie, Chenango Forks Elementary, Binghamton, NY

Publish Date : 2009-04-21T00:00:01Z