CANDACE FLEMING

BOOKS

Oh No

      

illus­trat­ed by Eric Rohmann
Schwartz & Wade
Sep­tem­ber 2012
978–0‑375–84271‑9
ages 3 to 7

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After you’ve read Oh, No! try this book:

Oh, No!

Young chil­dren will delight in repeat­ing the refrain “OH, NO!” as one ani­mal after anoth­er falls into a deep, deep hole in this live­ly read-aloud. Fans of Rohman­n’s Calde­cott Medal-win­ning My Friend Rab­bit will be thrilled to see a new book cre­at­ed in the same expres­sive and com­i­cal style.

Resources

Awards and Honors

  • Bull-Bran­som Award for illus­tra­tion, 2011

Reviews

  “With text that begs to be read aloud and sump­tu­ous illus­tra­tions made by a mas­ter print­mak­er, this pic­ture book reads like an instant clas­sic. Jack­et art pop­u­lat­ed by sev­er­al ani­mals that appear in the sto­ry estab­lish­es the Asian jun­gle set­ting: A tooth­some tiger lurks, while a loris, mouse and frog cow­er on front and back boards. The palette is rich with shades of brown, green, orange and bluish-gray, and the cover’s scene car­ries over on to end­pa­pers that show Tiger stalk­ing Frog. The chase con­tin­ues across front mat­ter pages until the first spread reads: ‘Frog fell into a deep, deep hole. Rib­bit-oops! Rib­bit-oops!’ Dra­mat­ic visu­al per­spec­tive cap­tures Frog’s fall, and the fol­low­ing spread shows Tiger set­tling in for his next move on his prey. As Tiger waits, a speech bal­loon her­alds the tit­u­lar cry, ‘Oh, no!’ Clear­ly, Frog is in trou­ble, and on ensu­ing pages, sev­er­al ani­mals make res­cue attempts, only to fall into the hole as well. Final­ly, a trum­pet­ing, stomp­ing ele­phant arrives and uses its trunk to save almost all of the trapped ani­mals: Tiger (who had tried to get to the ani­mals with din­ner rather than res­cue on his mind), falls into the hole on a pri­or spread, and after the elephant’s valiant res­cue, they all cry ‘Oh, no!’ when he cries for help. Oh, yes! This is a ter­rif­ic new pic­ture book.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

  “Rohmann’s relief prints bring an exu­ber­ant humor to Fleming’s rhyth­mic read-aloud. When an elas­tic-look­ing frog falls into a deep hole (‘Rib­bit-oops!’), a timid mouse, lugubri­ous loris, resource­ful sun bear, and jaun­ty mon­key all tum­ble down after him dur­ing unsuc­cess­ful res­cue attempts. Fleming’s bounc­ing rhymes and repeat­ed lines — set in com­fort­ably large, round­ed text — entice read­ers into an enjoy­able deliv­ery com­plete with snarled sound effects and ono­matopoe­ic excla­ma­tions. The repet­i­tive ‘Oh, no!’ allows lis­ten­ers to join in with the engag­ing text as the ani­mals face a lurk­ing tiger eager to snack on the help­less group. Rohmann knows to leave swathes of open space in his full-spread illus­tra­tions, focus­ing atten­tion on his expres­sive, ener­getic ani­mals in their vibrant safari palette of bright browns, tans, and greens. In a sat­is­fy­ing con­clu­sion, the refrain returns as the tiger, now stuck in the hole, asks the released ani­mals if they will help him clam­ber out. Oh, no!” (School Library Jour­nal, starred review)

  “In this first col­lab­o­ra­tion from Flem­ing and Rohmann, jun­gle ani­mals tum­ble one by one into a deep pit: ‘Frog fell into a deep, deep hole. Rib­bit-oops! Rib­bit-oops!’ The rhythm of the lines recalls the old favorite ‘Frog Went A‑Courtin’,’ and the sto­ry’s chain of acci­dents and bum­bling char­ac­ters are friend­ly, famil­iar devices, too. Mouse falls in try­ing to res­cue Frog, Loris tum­bles down from a tree, Sun Bear’s res­cue attempt fails, Mon­key’s swing from a vine goes wrong, but — just as Tiger looms above — they’re all res­cued by a kind­ly ele­phant. It sounds like light fare, but Rohman­n’s mag­nif­i­cent wood­block-style prints give it unex­pect­ed dig­ni­ty. The jun­gle pit is as spa­cious as a cathe­dral, and the ani­mals som­er­sault into it like Olympic divers in slow motion. Humor pre­vails, though, with piquant sound words (‘The ground bum­ble-rum­bled and quake-shake-quaked’), speech bal­loons float­ing up out of the pit, and glimpses of the tiger’s tail and paws. It’s a book with the feel of an old­er clas­sic — and it may well become one.” (Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, starred review)

“Chased by a grin­ning tiger, a wee frog falls down a deep, dark hole. In turn, a mouse, a loris, a bear, and a mon­key all swing by to help, but each man­ages to fall in just the same. Then the tiger, who’s been hid­ing just off­stage, pre­pares to feast — until an ele­phant pounds his way onto the scene and turns the tables. Flem­ing invig­o­rates this sim­ple sto­ry with rep­e­ti­tious, rhyth­mic phras­es that sing when read aloud: ‘The ground bum­ble-rum­bled and began to quake. / BA-BOOM! / The ground bum­ble-rum­bled and quake-shake-quaked. / And look who came to help them escape.’ The whole sto­ry pret­ty much takes place inside a hole, but Rohmann cun­ning­ly mix­es shift­ing per­spec­tives to liv­en up every spread, and though the beau­ti­ful­ly ren­dered ani­mals are done via relief print­ing, the lines are so grace­ful that they look like casu­al brush­strokes. Sure to be a hit for bois­ter­ous sto­ry­time read­ings. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Flem­ing and Rohmann are both huge­ly pop­u­lar in their own rights, and the mar­quee matchup should gen­er­ate plen­ty of atten­tion.” (Book­list)

“For her cumu­la­tive tale about ani­mals falling into a hole, Flem­ing adopts the danc­ing cadence of ‘Frog Went a‑Courting,’ punc­tu­ates each verse with a chime-in phrase, and con­cludes it with a repeat­ed ‘Oh, No!’: ‘Frog fell into a deep, deep hole. / Rib­bit-oops! Rib­bit-oops! … Frog fell into such a deep hole, / he couldn’t get out to save his soul. / Croaked Frog, ‘Help! Help! I can’t get out!’ / Oh, No!’ So it goes with Mouse, Loris, and more, until Tiger — who’s been lurk­ing near­by all along — threat­ens to ‘help [them] out.’ For­tu­nate­ly, Ele­phant shows up to save the oth­ers while Tiger falls into his own trap — at least until the escapees are safe­ly out of sight. Rohmann’s ener­getic relief prints show the ani­mals’ tum­bles into that deep, dark, curvi­lin­ear hole from a vari­ety of per­spec­tives, fur­ther pro­pelling the com­ic action, while a sim­ply delin­eat­ed bam­boo grove forms an effec­tive back­drop. Like Rohmann’s 2003 Calde­cott win­ner My Friend Rab­bit, this has all the marks of a soon-to-be-mem­o­rized favorite.” (The Horn Book)