Spy Guy: The Not-So-Secret Agent - Hardcover

Jessica Young grew up in Ontario, Canada and now lives with her family in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is an art teacher and writer. jessicayoungbooks.wordpress.com.

Charles Santoso creates illustrations for books, animated feature films, and television commercials. His drawings and paintings have been exhibited in gallery shows in Australia, North America, France and Bulgaria. Charles lives and works in Sydney, Australia. www.charlessantoso.com.

PreS-Gr 2—"Spy Guy was a spy. But not a very good one." Readers observe a boy knocking his head on the table as he's trying to hide under it, sending a lamp to the floor, and startling his sleeping cat. In an effort to improve his spying skills, he visits "the Chief"—his dad—who gives him a series of rhyming pieces of advice ("if you seek to sneak, try not to speak") that he attempts to follow, with mixed results. Finally, the Chief answers the boy's plea for "the secret to spying" with a challenge: Spy Guy needs to successfully sneak up on the Chief. With this mission finally accomplished, Spy Guy has yet another rhyme to share: "The secret to spying is never stop trying." Santoso's illustrations are the highlight of this amusing, if light, picture book. The large amount of white background space allows readers to focus on details like Spy Guy's wide variety of facial expressions and the various moods of the cat, whose story is told exclusively in the illustrations. A spider, which is never mentioned, appears on every page, allowing readers to do some spying of their own to find it. VERDICT Fluffy fun that promotes visual literacy and will make a positive addition to interactive storytime collections.—Jill Ratzan, I. L. Peretz Community Jewish School, Somerset, NJ