Blast Off Boy and Blorp: First Day on a Strange New Planet - Hardcover

There's nothing like those first-day-of-school jitters, and when you're the new kid on the block, it's even more nerve-racking. So imagine how it would feel to be the new kid on the planet! Participants in a galactic space exchange program, Johnny Smith (a.k.a. Blast Off Boy) from Earth and Blorp Glorp from planet Meep are preparing for day 1 in their respective new elementary schools. Blast Off, visiting Meep, is simultaneously blasé and anxious. Blorp, on Earth, is so excited he keeps floating up to the ceiling. The story alternates between these two boys' points of view, describing in all-too-painful detail that new-school feeling of just plain not belonging.

In pictures and text, Yaccarino eloquently captures those alienating moments--on the school bus ("Swell, the only free seat is next to a kid with two heads. Gross."), in the classroom ("Would you tell us the square root of .769FQ87-1/2?"), and the lunchroom ("'Oh boy!' cried Blorp. 'Titanium Tetrazzini! You want some?'"). Fortunately, as is usually the case in these situations, both boys eventually begin to find their niches. This excellent story is for any child about to embark on a brand-new, kind of scary experience. Yaccarino, with his appealing retro-futuristic pictures, is the author-illustrator of many quirky picture books, including Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! I'm Off to the Moon!. (Ages 4 to 8) --Emilie Coulter

In this auspicious debut of the Blast Off Boy and Blorp series, Yaccarino (Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! I'm Off to the Moon) grandly unveils the Galactic Space Exchange Program. "Johnny Smith, dubbed 'Blast Off Boy' by his hometown newspaper, had been chosen out of millions as the most average kid on the planet. He was being sent to represent Earth.... On planet Meep, a little green alien boy named Blorp Glorp was also making plans." Yaccarino's characteristic illustrations with their retro palette and solid, nearly geometric shapes create ideal intergalactic scenes. Blast Off Boy, frowning inside his bubble space helmet, adjusts to school on Meep; meanwhile, turf-green, black-eyed Blorp takes human elementary schoolers by surprise ("The other students quietly moved their desks away from him"). Things do not go smoothly. Blast Off Boy becomes the center of attention among the robots and frankfurter-shaped monsters in his classroom ("All 67 eyes were on him"), and Blorp gets detention for mixing and drinking a chemistry-lab concoction. Yaccarino toggles between planets to contrast the first-day experiences, casting Blast Off Boy as hesitant, Blorp as a bouncy extrovert. The bulbous, ballooning paintings conjure a spacey weightlessness on the page, particularly when Blorp levitates in homeroom and when Blast Off Boy hides behind a transparent, amoebalike classmate. Yaccarino puts a fresh and funny spin on ordinary events like lunchtime and gym class, and builds plenty of anticipation for New Pet, an installment planned for release next fall. Ages 5-8. (Oct.)
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