Uma Wimple Charts Her House

by Reif Larsen (Author)

Uma Wimple Charts Her House
Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade

Hip, funny, unique--and a perfect curriculum tie-in--here's a picture book with mega kid-appeal about the challenges a student faces when she is given an assignment to make a chart of her own home!

Uma's been making charts since she was a little kid. But when her teacher gives the class Uma's dream assignment--to make a chart of their own homes--she is thrown for a loop. Oh, the possibilities! Oh, the pressure! What makes a house housey? she wonders. In order to figure it out, she asks each member of her family--Mom, Dad, and brothers Rex, Bram, and Lukey. But it's not until she has a meltdown and Lukey comforts her that Uma figures out the secret to her chart--and her family. It's the love that is shared inside a house's walls.

Told in first-person and featuring engaging graphic artwork, this fun and lively picture book--perfect for classroom use--is a reminder that someone's true home is not a place, but rather the people with whom you surround yourself.

Select format:
Hardcover
$17.99

Publishers Weekly

Uma loves to make charts, and Gibson (The Ghastly Dandies Do the Classics) shows her efforts in elementary school-style drawings: "When I was five, I made a chart of all the trees I passed on the way to school." There are more: a pizza pie chart of her family's topping preferences, a screen-time bar chart (her father exceeds the recommended number of hours). Pastel digital artwork with clean lines portrays the large white family that Larsen (I Am Radar, for adults) writes about: Uma, her parents, three brothers, and multiple pets. One day, Uma announces a new project--a strangely unclear "chart of our own home." But Uma is anxious instead of thrilled, unclear on how to "chart something so big, so important, so complicated." Tension accumulates as she asks her family what "makes a house housey," resulting in a meltdown that Lukey, her younger brother, talks her down from. "Nothing is impossible," he says, which is enough to get her going. As an introduction to the visual presentation of data and the creative process, it's a useful classroom adjunct. End papers include chart definitions and examples. Ages 4-8. (May)

Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes

Readers will delight in looking closely and learning more about Uma's quirky hobby. —Kirkus Reviews
Reif Larsen
Reif Larsen is the author of two novels for adults, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet (a New York Times bestseller) and I Am Radar. The Selected Works was won by Penguin in a ten-house auction for almost one million dollars, and was made into a movie, The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet, starring Kathy Bates and Helena Bonham-Carter. He also writes articles on travel for the New York Times, GQ, and others. Reif received an MFA from Columbia University. Visit him at reiflarsen.com.

Ben Gibson spends his days making charts about things like birds, cats, dogs, wizards, skyscrapers, outer space, grammar, rap music, invisible things, fruits, vegetables, sharks, bicycles, and dinosaurs at the company he co founded, Pop Chart. Pop Chart's award-winning designs can be seen in people's homes all around the world, and in collaborations with brands such as the New York Times, Esquire, GQ, Wired, HBO, and Comedy Central, among others.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9780593181188
Lexile Measure
510
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Anne Schwartz Books
Publication date
May 20, 2021
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV009000 - Juvenile Fiction | Concepts | General
JUV035000 - Juvenile Fiction | School & Education
JUV013000 - Juvenile Fiction | Family | General
JUV000000 - Juvenile Fiction | General
Library of Congress categories
Dwellings
Home
Charts, diagrams, etc

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