Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-Sammy Sanders is obsessed with a spaghetti-slurping sewer serpent and, with the help of his sister, Sally, is on a mission to find the creature. She spies what seems to be a clue and falls into the sewer, but to no avail. When Sammy decides to bait it with a bowl of spaghetti, he comes face-to-face with a gigantic beast with a lovable heart. Prismacolor colored pencil drawings depict the characters' developing dynamic. Unfortunately, there's not much detail to spice up the quickly realized plot, and the heavy focus on alliteration immediately grows cumbersome, bogging down the story line. "The sewer serpent slithers up to the scrumptious spaghetti and slurps it from a spork while swinging on the Sanders' squeaky swing." The author wrote this story "so children could practice the tricky letter S and be entertained at the same time." The result is disappointing.-Meg Smith, Cumberland County Public Library, Fayetteville, NC (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Sammy Sanders and his sister Sally are on the trail of a spaghetti-loving subterranean serpent. After a messy tumble into the sewer's sludgy goo yields nothing, Sammy leaves a bowl of spaghetti bait on the swing set to find out the truth. The exhausting tongue-twisting text is less a story than a lesson in diction. The colored-pencil illustrations are benign. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A pint-sized sleuth tracks a purple underground monster. When Mom scrapes the family's uneaten spaghetti into the sink, young Sammy Sanders hears strange slurping sounds. He becomes "77 percent convinced" that a spaghetti-slurping serpent lives in his sewer, and can't get to sleep. The next morning, Sammy and his little sister Sally investigate. There are meatballs and strands of limp spaghetti around the manhole cover! Sammy, whose round glasses make the whites of his eyes look as enormous as an owl's, can barely contain his excitement. After he removes the cover, Sally slips on some sauce and lands in the sewer, becoming a smelly sludgy mess. Sammy's left to investigate alone and comes up with a brilliant idea. Late that night, he sneaks out of the house with a salty snack for himself and a bowl of spaghetti for the serpent. But he falls asleep, and the huge serpent slithers up to the scrumptious spaghetti. Slurping sounds startle Sammy awake; he's face-to-face with the monster. There's just one thing to do: Share! Sammy' salty snack earns him a friend for life. And that night, he sleeps soundly, 100% sure that there's a serpent in his sewer. Zenz's illustrations, in Prismacolor colored pencil, look generic, but Ripes' yarn has pace and phonetic crackle. Fun enough once through, but not much more. (Picture book. 3-6) ]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
