Potato Pants by Laurie Keller

Today's guest contributor, Benji Martn, is a librarian and educator from Montgomery, Alabama. He serves as the elementary school librarian at Saint James School, and blogs at Tales of an Elementary School Librarian. You can find him on Twitter at @mrBenjimartin.

Laurie Keller's last book, We are Growing, won the 2017 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, so it makes sense that her next book, Potato Pants! would be on the Guessing Geisel radar. It was certainly on mine. I've been a fan of Laurie's ever since Arnie the Donut first came into my life, and I was extremely excited to hear that she had a new picture book coming out in 2018.

Potato Pants is everything I hoped it would be. It's funny, has some great illustrations, and the kid appeal is off the charts. It also has a nice little message about forgiveness and the perils of assuming the worst of people, which it delivers without ever feeling preachy or didactic. It also makes a great read aloud for a wide range of age groups.

However, Guessing Geisel is not just a review blog for awesome picture books. I have to look at this book in terms of the Geisel award criteria, and I'll be honest: As much as I love this book, it isn't really a beginning reader, or a picture book designed for new readers. There are a few difficult words scattered throughout the book like "suspenders," "trousers," "cucumber" and "exhale" that might trip a new reader up, and the words don't show up again to reinforce the new vocabulary.

Also, much like in Arnie the Donut, Laurie Keller doesn't use a lot of white space. In most of the book, she uses every inch of the page to pack in as much dialog and as many jokes as she can.

This makes the book better, in my opinion. Older kids will love to sit with the book and follow every conversation, but I can see it being pretty overwhelming for a younger reader struggling to get through a book that is already packed with some difficult words.

Don't get me wrong. This book is amazing. Every kid should read it or have it read to to them, but I will be pretty shocked if it wins the Geisel. It just doesn't fit into the beginning reader category.