Product Description

When Professor Glink decides to create a perpetual motion machine replete with a " mingle-mangle" of pendulums, pulleys, cogs and gears, the darn contraption soon takes on a life of its own--with hilarious results. With sensationally complicated illustrations and show-stopping tongue-twisters, Gizmo may well be the looniest picture book of the year.

Product Details

• Published on: 2007-04-17
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3–Professor Ludwig von Glick's attempt at creating a perpetual-motion contraption gets out of hand. The machine takes over his house, inside and out, until the City Buildings and Permits Inspector condemns the place. Just as the wrecking ball is about to swing, the Director of the City Contemporary Art Museum arrives and saves the creation: It was a case of art for art's sake. The author is equally professorial as he long-windedly builds a gizmo of words. Adjectives and adverbs dangle from nouns and verbs, hook onto prepositional phrases, and connect with conjunctions: …sounds of clanging and banging,/and pinging and ringing,/that were not entirely unpleasant,/as well as tingly, tangly twitterings….And the way in which/the device shimmied swervily,/and teetered topsy-turvily,/in a manner that was somehow/both lifelike and robotic,/was oddly hypnotic. The run-on rhymes perfectly describe the out-of-control invention. The cartoon ink-and-watercolor illustrations are equally playful and intricate. Whimsical spreads give detail-oriented readers busily involved notches and nodes,/nubbins and niches to explore. This light and humorous look at gadgetry will be a great introduction to units on inventions and inventors.–Carolyn Janssen, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, OH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Professor Ludwig van Glink attempts to build a perpetual-motion machine inside his house. When it fails, he turns the complicated yet whimsical contraption into an even more complex and imaginative one: the Gizmo. It delights his children with multiple rides as it wends its way through the house, out the windows, and onto the roof. When the city inspector condemns their home, the local museum director talks the mayor into standing between the Gizmo and the wrecking ball. The animation inherent in Briant's colorful line-and-wash artwork bolsters the humor, while Varela's playful sense of language leads to some inspired wordplay. But like the Gizmo itself, the text and art seem to get out of hand at times. In the most crowded scenes, the chaotic profusion of objects makes it hard to focus on anything for long, and some of the words and phrases require not just an adult for explanation, but an adult armed with a dictionary. Still, kids might just enjoy seeing the Gizmo go crazy. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author