Chloe and the Lion

This book was great! It was about a girl named Chloe who was trying get passed a big ole lion. However, the author and the illustrator could not agree on how they wanted to represent this lion, so they argued during the book! The scene was comedic and unique. As the author progressed through the

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book he could not find anyone who would agree with him on how the book should go and he started to miss his original illustrator. Chloe eventually achieves her goal of getting a nickel to ride the merry-go-round, after the lion coughed them all up. Very entertaining read!

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This book works on so many levels: explicit play with the role of author and illustrator within the plot; multiple voices; dialogue; character development; multi-layered plot lines; toying with fairy tale tropes; interacting with live theater/drama on the print page; multiple illustrator points of

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view; its simultaneous appeal to adults and children. I could go on and on. This is the first 5 I've given since I started my LibraryThing logging. I read the book because I've heard it's getting a lot of award buzz; now I hope those awards deliver so that this book finds its way to so many others--young and young at heart.

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AWESOME. Author Mac Barnett just wants to tell a story about a little girl and a lion, but his illustrator Adam Rex is being...difficult. This is so very entertaining and funny, and great for 3rd grade readers and up. I even included this in a book talk about picture books for teenagers!

Highly

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recommended and would be fun to pair with other self-aware picture books like An Undone Fairy Tale (Lendler), Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude (O'Malley), and, my personal favorite, We Are In a Book (Willems).

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Fun metafiction for the preschool and primary crowd.

Oh my goodness, this book was adorable. I don't usually add the picture books to my shelf, but I just couldn't resist. Chloe and the Lion is a story where the author and the illustrator get in an argument and fight over how the story should turn out. The characters even get in on the action and

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talk to the author and illustrator. The pictures are great and the story is adorable.

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Nobody does off-the-wall, slightly cracked humor like Mac Barnett and Adam Rex. Chloe is identified early on as the main character in the book, but it's really Mac, who learns an important lesson about teamwork. When I shared this book with my husband, I giggled over and over again and kept

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stopping to really enjoy the art. Rex's art has multiple levels and the artist's note on the CIP page includes a laundry list of materials and mediums: basswood, balsa wood, oil and acrylic paints, pencil, Sculpey clay, modified doll clothing, toilet paper (?! - where? maybe the giant letters?), photography and Photoshop. I will say that I think very few children will actually get the joke when Chloe's looking for help against the lion and approaches an old woman with a pitchfork who only goes "after monsters who've been emotionally wounded by their mad-genius creators," but it delighted me! I don't think I'd use this with preschool kids, but I imagine it would be a great hit with grade school kids particularly if guided to think about the creative process and how they'd create their own stories.

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While younger children may be confused by this story which is only indirectly about Chloe and the lion, older kids (and adults) will enjoy the squabbling between author Mac Barnett and illustrator Adam Rex, who pop in and out in claymation form as they argue over the vision of the story. A fun take

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on the creative and collaborative processes involved in book creation.

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I thought this book was very unique and creative. At first I did not understand it’s educational purpose, but I picked up on it’s academic value as I read further. The author did something unusual in that he made himself and the illustrator characters in the book that interacted with the book

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characters. This was an odd, yet funny point of view because the dispute between the author and the illustrator indirectly reinforced the elements of the book. On page 14 the author states, “ This is me, Mac. I’m the author of this book. This is my new friend, Hank. He’s the illustrator of this book. And this is Chloe, the main character of this book…” Normally students are given instruction on textual features such as captions, bolded words, etc., but this was a great way to remind students that books also have authors and illustrators who work hard to publish a book together. This was also reflected in the plot where the main character, author, and illustrator worked to solve a problem together so that they can make a good story. This pushes readers to value collaboration and the importance of all working together. The big idea of this story is that it is important to work as a team so that you can get the best of everyone’s ideas, rather than try to do everything yourself.

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This book is good, but may be a little more advance for a second grade level. There is a lot of stories going on, but if the concept is understood than I think that the book can be very enjoyable. I really enjoyed the book and think that it shows a lot about what the author and the illustrator of

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books do.

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The book was creative and unique from other children's books. It definitely established the roles of author, illustrator, and character throughout the story. It did this by including all three people within the content, illustrations, plot, and dialogue. For example, the author would get angry with

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the illustrator for no drawing the correct animal for the story. He told the illustrator, "You're the illustrator. That means I'm in charge of what happens, and you draw whatever I tell you." This specific type of interaction brings the relationship between the author and illustrator to life. Another way the book was creative and unique was the use of mixed media. Paint, clay, paper, crayon, and other media were used throughout the story. Usually an artist sticks with one form media. The use of different media emphasized the different roles coming together within the story. For example, the characters in the book are generally done with paint whereas the "real life" author and illustrator characters were made with clay. This is a great way to create a clear distinction between real life and fictional characters. The book felt slightly chaotic and repetitive at times but I think its unique approach to telling a story is worth reading. I just didn't like the use of the word "idiot" to describe the knight. I personally wouldn't want children to be encouraged to use that word. The central message of the book is to appreciate who you have in your life and there is always a way to make things better again.

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This is probably my new favorite book. The detail, the illustrations, the setup to the main struggle, the dialogue, the 4th wall break, and the story in general are all pure gold. I legitimately laughed out loud while reading this. It's a story about an author and an illustrator arguing over their

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story, and the hero ends up being the lead character. This book is so meta and incredible and I've never read anything like it. Some of it will go over children's heads (shoutouts to Frankenstein and Little Red), but even kids can understand the humor behind an illustrator drawing things to torment the author and the author writing things to torment the illustrator. This book is brilliant.

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Summary: Mac, the author, Adam, the illustrator, and Chloe, the main character all work together to create a story about a lion in the woods. Chloe likes to look for enough missing change to get her a ticket to ride the merry-go-round, although one day she found a lot of change that bought her many

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tickets. She ended up flying into the woods, and there was a lion! although the illustration resembled a dragon, so Mac fired Adam, and Adam was eaten by the Lion. Mac then found another illustrator and, and the new illustrator was not as talented as Adam, so Mac began to draw. Because his illustrations were horrible, Mac was about to give up until Chloe encouraged him to hire Adam back. Chloe searches for the Lion, who coughed up Adam. The story was about to end until Chloe said, "Is that it? I mean, I faced a lion, saved Adam, kept Mac from abandoning the whole story midway through..." The Lion ended up shaking a bunch of change out that bought enough tickets to ride the merry-go-round all over again.

As one of my favorite books I have read so far, the storyline and illustration really kept me engaged and smiling. I believe the central message of this story is based on kindness and teamwork. Even though Mac fired Adam, they came back together in the end and apologized to each other, and Chloe assisted Mac along the way by encouraging him not to give up. I like how this book included illustrations of the author and the illustrator, so you could see cartoon images of them. I also like how the text and font changes throughout he story to match the plot. For instance, when Chloe is searching for the lion late at night in the forest, the font gets bigger when it says "Chloe could hear the lion's footsteps getting closer and closer. They started out thunderous and grew to be earsplitting." Closer and closer, thunderous, and earsplitting were all bigger than the rest of the words, which adds a scary dynamic to the book. It also highlights vocabulary that is important to what is happening in the story.

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Summary:

The book starts with author introducing himself, his main character and his friend and illustrator. Then he begins to tell the story of his main character Chloe, who encounters a lion, except the illustrator draws a dragon instead of a lion because he thinks it is cooler. The author gets

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mad and gets another illustrator then then he has the lion eat Mac the first illustrator. But then the other illustrator does draw the lion like the author wanted so decides to do it himself, but he can't draw so he apologizes to the first illustrator. and he and Chloe device a plan to get Mac back from the Lion by embarrassing the lion.

Review:

This is a great book! The story is super clever, not only the one the author is telling but the story going on between the author and illustrator. The author works himself and the illustrator into the story and then add his main character seamlessly. The illustrations were great because they were so varied. The illustrator combined many different types of mediums. He used clay, color pencil, 3d modeling and 2d illustrations. The text features in the in story were also very creative and added to the story.

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This book made me laugh out loud! Then I had to read it to my husband. The humor is great and the surprises on each page made it very enjoyable. This would be a great book to read to younger students then talk to them about cooperating and working together. I think our school counselor would like

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to use it too.

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This book has actually grown on me since reding it out loud to children. At first I felt that it was quite random and strange with simply silly things happening. But kids love it! They love seeing the different directions a story can take based on what the author may write and what the illustrator

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draws. I would use this to talk about story development and how illustrations go with the text.

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Mac the writer and Adam the artist disagree about the direction the story should take so Mac has Adam eaten by the lion and tries to get a new illustrator in. Chloe knows that Mac needs Adam and convinces him to not only allow Adam to come back but the lion to spit up Adam as well.

There are so

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many great jokes here including a Frankenstein reference, the breakdown of the fourth wall, and the illustration techniques are really interesting and in a good way. I really enjoyed this book.

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Mac the writer and Adam the artist disagree about the direction the story should take so Mac has Adam eaten by the lion and tries to get a new illustrator in. Chloe knows that Mac needs Adam and convinces him to not only allow Adam to come back but the lion to spit up Adam as well.

There are so

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many great jokes here including a Frankenstein reference, the breakdown of the fourth wall, and the illustration techniques are really interesting and in a good way. I really enjoyed this book.

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Mac the writer and Adam the artist disagree about the direction the story should take so Mac has Adam eaten by the lion and tries to get a new illustrator in. Chloe knows that Mac needs Adam and convinces him to not only allow Adam to come back but the lion to spit up Adam as well.

There are so

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many great jokes here including a Frankenstein reference, the breakdown of the fourth wall, and the illustration techniques are really interesting and in a good way. I really enjoyed this book.

Show Less

Mac the writer and Adam the artist disagree about the direction the story should take so Mac has Adam eaten by the lion and tries to get a new illustrator in. Chloe knows that Mac needs Adam and convinces him to not only allow Adam to come back but the lion to spit up Adam as well.

There are so

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many great jokes here including a Frankenstein reference, the breakdown of the fourth wall, and the illustration techniques are really interesting and in a good way. I really enjoyed this book.

Show Less