Cousin Irv from Mars

Gr 4–6—In this picture book, Teddy's mother's cousin visits from Mars and must sleep in the youngster's bedroom. Throughout, commentary directed at readers moves the story along, giving them an earful about Cousin Irv and his noisy breathing. Meanwhile, Teddy's mother tells Irv that Teddy doesn't want him to know that her son has no friends. When the man takes out his electromagnetic ray in Teddy's classroom and vaporizes objects, Teddy is suddenly popular, and his feelings about his relative shift: "You know, if you only see what you don't like about someone, you never see what you do like about them." Nothing lasts long, though, and when Irv's vacation is over, disappointed Teddy admits, "We all know, or should know if we weren't always forgetting, accepting things is the only way to be happy." But there's more. Teddy's dad gets a job on Mars, and the family moves in with Coursin Irv. The unique pen-and-ink and watercolor artwork on white backgrounds is spare and looks rudimentary, and the characters have crude, claylike expressions.The pictures convey a sense of space, which adds to the pacing of the story and emphasizes the trajectory of the visit. Kids might be inspired by Kaplan's easy-to-imitate style. Nevertheless, the book is likely to have a limited audience of sophisticated readers.—Sara Lissa Paulson, The American Sign Language and English Lower School, New York City