by Moe Zilla

Created on: August 14, 2010

"It was an ordinary Monday morning in Walla Walla - until Lulu raised her hand in class."

And then the story takes a really weird turn. In fact, there's a story behind this story. According to the book's jacket, author Andrew Clements was the editorial director at the Picture Book Studio, until he "said bye-bye to the hubbub and the humdrum and now writes full time." This was his first book, and that description of his career actually gives a hint about the book's premise. Lulu - in Walla Walla - says her homework is "all higgledy-piggledy...a big mish-mash." Even though last night, it was "in tip-top shape."

On the book's cover, there's a chalkboard covered with more words that offer another hint. There's "bow-wow," "boo-boo," "tie-die" and even "coulda-woulda." This is important, because the story won't make any sense unless you recognize the pattern. Lulu's teacher complains about Lulu's "flip-flop chitter-chatter" - warning her she's about to be "in double trouble!"

Lulu's escorted to the principal's office - while they children whisper "My-my" and "hee-hee." Lulu's teacher whispers "Come come," then delivers her complaint to the principal. "Lulu's been trying to razzle-dazzle me with some kind of lippity-loppity jibber-jabber, and now I'm all helter-skelter myself." And of course, the principal has the perfect response.

"Tut-tut, sounds like silly-willy hocus-pocus to me."

There's a problem with a book like this. There really aren't enough words to keep the pattern going. Pretty soon the teacher and the principal are using obscure colloquialisms like "fiddle-faddle" and "wacko-wacko," so sometimes the narration feels very stilted. (Although to be fair, I once read a Maurice Sendak rhyme to a four-year-old boy, and his favorite part seemed to be the rhyming words. They made him laugh.)

The silly story got some wonderful illustrations by Salvatore Murdocca. In one beautiful two-page spread, he draws orange autumn leaves on the trees around the brick school building, adding in two grand columns, a yellow school bus, and a flag waving from a pole. The colorful illustrations fill each page, with cheerful backgrounds in bright colors like yellow or blue. And the funny grown-ups with their stretched-tall faces look like caricatures from Mad magazine.

The illustrator helps out by drawing in speech bubbles where the characters repeat some of the words from the text. ("Razzmatazz," says Lulu's teacher in one drawing, as Lulu's receiving her diagnosis from the school nurse.) "It seems to me that you've opened up a knock'em sock'em wibble-wobble word warp!" the nurse explains. "I usually don't believe in this kind of hoodoo bunko-junko, but if it was going to happen anywhere, it would probably happen right here in Walla Walla."

The nurse's solution? Clear out the word warp - by saying a LOT of the strange words with repetitive and rhyming syllables. But of course, what else could it be? The book's story is almost entirely driven by the fact that the author needs to keep using these strange double words. It's either charming or annoying - though I have to admit that I laughed when I got to the book's final page, when the townfolk had finally all returned to normal, and the school would never again have to worry about their strange verbal affliction. Lulu gathers up her English homework, and leaves her teacher's classroom behind to head out for home. "Bye-bye, Mrs. Ding-Dong," she says.

To which her teacher replies...

"Ta-ta, Lulu!"

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