Baron von Baddie and the Ice Ray Incident by George McClements

Just as the Baron needs Captain Kapow as audience and foil to his devilish deeds, librarians everywhere should share this title with their own audience. They encourage you to get up close and examine the details. McClements mixed media collage illustrations have never looked better, with characters taking shape from a number of expertly used resources - paper, chalk, and photographic cut-outs. It isn’t very often when you can say this: with “Baron”, every turn of the page is a gift. The Baron realizes that Captain Kapow made his job worth doing, and begins working on a new invention that will set his enemy free. He builds new evil robots, eats doughnuts, and changes the days of the week, but it just isn’t the same.

With his arch nemesis out of the way, von Baddie doesn’t know what to do with himself.

A cycle of capture and escape continues until one day, the Baron gets lucky: an accidental blast from his Ice Ray freezes Kapow. But for an evil genius, escape is inevitable. Unfortunately, whenever he attempts to unleash one of his plots on the world, Captain Kapow is there to ruin it, putting the Baron behind bars. A wonderfully illustrated story that will be hard for kids to resist.īaron von Baddie is an evil genius with evil plans to spare. “Baron von Baddie and the Ice Ray Incident”, by George McClements (Night of the Veggie Monster), takes this simple premise and applies it to the world of superheroes. If no one is there to say “no”, it’s not much fun. A similar principle can be applied to doing something sneaky. Taking in “Jessie’s Song” with a friend: 10. The show is better if there is someone for you to interact with. So long as the general story is understood, if a child doesn't understand a word or two, it will probably not be detrimental.If you’ve ever watched an episode of “Saved by the Bell” alone, you know that it isn’t as much fun when there’s no one watching with you. Since an adult is usually the one reading the story, if a child doesn't understand a word, then the adult can explain it. Picture books to teach context clues is a common technique teachers use to teach older children how to write. Picture books have pictures to help act as context clues. Picture books are meant to be read aloud. Since picture books have several things working FOR them, word choice (in one aspect) doesn't have to be so specific to the age. Specifically the 4-8 year old 'classic' picture book. Now, if you write easy reader books, then definitely get yourself some word lists for 5-8 year olds.īut picture books? It's another whole ball game.

With chapter books, I would try to create as many context clues as possible, and don't use words that a child wouldn't typically know until the 6th grade, since most readers of chapter books are 7-10 years old (2nd through 4th grade).

Baron von Baddie and the Ice Ray Incident by George McClements