Tuesday in Arizona

Book Review:

Before the actual story, there is a little preface, which informs the reader about pack rats, who are collectors by nature. The story then goes through the days of one week, beginning on Tuesday. With each day a gold prospector's problems get worse. Most of these problems are caused by a pack rat, which is never mentioned in the text, but is portrayed in the illustrations.

This story would not be the same without these wonderfully done oil paintings. The words of the text are intentionally ambiguous, lending the reader to wonder exactly what the author meant, but coupled with the illustrations, the meaning becomes clear, and therefore very humorous. Each day, even with the text sounding positive, we see in the illustrations that the words are facetious. In fact, the illustrations are done so well, that they either distract the reader completely from the text, or the reader must read the book twice, once for the text, and once for the illustrations. They really have a lot of good detail in some of them, and they do pretty much tell the story in its entirety without needing the text.

It would be a good idea to explain what a pack rat is and does before reading the story. The author and illustrator include a short preface about pack rats, which help the reader appreciate the humor of the story. Without this knowledge, the students will not understand the story as well. The students will then readily point out the pack rat on each page. Possible good activities to engage students in after the story are to have them draw either their favorite scene, or something they found important in the story.

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