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Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways (by Laura McGee Kvasnosky)

common sense media says

Seuss Award winner is great fun for early readers.

parents & educators say
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What parents need to know

Parents need to know that this award-winning book for beginning readers includes three stories full of kid imagination. In one, the sisters pretend to run away but stick to their own yard (their parents know where they are, but this is never spelled out). In another, they make a potion they call "creative juice" to help them think of a poem idea. Some literal-minded kids may think the girls are really running away and their parents don't notice, or that the potion is real or something to drink (they don't drink it -- they throw it on their heads) -- so it's definitely worth checking in with kids to see whether they understood the story.

Positive messages: Sisters play well together and use their imaginations.
Violence & scariness: Not applicable.
Language: Not applicable.
Our ratings and reviews are informed by child development guidelines. Learn more.

More on Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways

What to talk about

Talk to your kids
Families can talk about the sisters and their big ideas. Why did they pretend to run away? When Zelda's book gets creative juice on it, what does she do with it?

What's the story?

What's the story?
Three chapters -- The Runaways, The Time Capsule, and The Secret Concoction -- feature young fox sisters Zelda and Ivy. In The Runaways, Zelda and Ivy escape eating cucumber sandwiches by packing a suitcase and running away to their backyard. In The Time Capsule, the girls bury a couple of their favorite things for future children, then realize they miss them. In The Secret Concoction, Zelda can't think of a haiku poem to write her grandmother, so Ivy makes "creative juice" to help Zelda along. A very different creative idea results.

Is it any good?

Is it any good?
 
Just like any good Seuss book, Theodor Seuss Geisel Award winner ZELDA AND IVY: THE RUNAWAYS dives right into the fun stuff and keeps kids reading. Author Laura Kvasnosky's illustrations are friendly and colorful and reward young readers after only a few sentences of hard pronunciation work. She makes simple fox features surprisingly expressive. Kids will be challenged here and there with words like "haiku" and a blanket edge described as having "pussy-willow puffs," so this probably isn't a book kids will toss aside after one reading. Happily, the way the stories are presented will make them more up for the challenge.

Book themes & details

Book Details
Author: Laura McGee Kvasnosky
Illustrator: Laura McGee Kvasnosky
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Publication date: May 9, 2006
Number of pages: 48
Hardcover price: $14.99
Read Aloud: 4
Read Alone: 6
This review was written by Carrie R. Wheadon
 
 

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What parents & educators say

4

Most useful reviews by all members

Jon Lovitz
adult
3
 
Eh...
I was excited when I saw the title, because I thought it would be about Link and Hyrule, etc. I thought they had been turned into foxes from an evil spell by Ganondorf. Boy, was I ever wrong! But its still cute.
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helped me decide (4) | had useful details (2) | read my mind (2)
avid reader ...
adult
4
 
FUN and FUNNY
Funny and true to life -- i think sisters may see each other in these stories.
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helped me decide (2) | had useful details (2) | read my mind (1)
Leenah
adult
4
 
It's a good set of stories.
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was this review useful?
helped me decide (1) | had useful details (2) | read my mind (2)

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ON: Content is appropriate for kids this age.
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