THE VIPER

Writing a funny, original easy reader isn’t easy, especially writing one that incorporates concepts of time, wrapped up in a spooky story (based on an old campfire tale). Using an old, old, old, joke as her base, Thiesing packs in all the time concepts covered in first-grade classrooms: the calendar, telling time, incremental lengths of time (from a year to minutes), and the old rhyme about “Thirty days has September.” Peggy the pig receives regular mysterious phone calls over the course of a calendar year from a “husky, dusky voice” announcing that he is “zee Viper,” and he “vill come” to her house in a month, then in a week, and so on, counting down to his arrival with increasingly delicious suspense. Peggy looks up the word “viper” in the dictionary (another classroom skill) and thus expects a scary snake to show up at a locked and barricaded door. In a delightfully funny groaner, zee Viper is window washer Willy the Wiemeraner, who announces to Peggy that he has “come to vipe your vindows!” Teachers will like this for the cleverly integrated educational concepts; librarians will use it for story hours; parents will love seeing the familiar joke in print; and young readers will thrill to its mildly scary tone and funny ending. Theising’s cheerful, bright illustrations include lots of humorous details with a variety of formats that add to the story’s momentum. (Easy reader. 5-8)