Books

Sometimes You Barf

Sometimes You BarfEverybody barfs. Dogs, cats, chickens, alligators, and even you. It happens to everyone, and sometimes it even happens…at school. With her characteristic humor and compassion, Nancy Carlson helps young readers through what is often a scary and embarrassing rite of passage.

Sometimes you barf. But it’s OK. You get better!



Sometimes You Barf inside pagesKIRKUS REVIEW
Everything you ever wanted to know about throwing up…and why you shouldn’t be embarrassed.
A little girl and her dog, Archie, take readers through this primer. Everybody barfs once in a while, she says, and illustrates her point with a veritable zoo of barfing animals, from aardvark to platypus. (In this book, when something or someone is about to barf, its face gets amusingly green, except for lizards, which get pink.) When a dog barfs, it gives plenty of warning—and after it does, you might find something you’ve been looking for, like a missing sock. The flu could cause you to barf, and if it happens at school, better hope you do it on a math test. It summons the janitor in a hazmat suit for cleanup with his “special barf cleanup machine” and sends you home to a barf bucket. Once you’re eating solid food, it’s back to school! Sometimes You Barf inside pagesEverybody welcomes you warmly, and it turns into a great day…except for that math test you have to retake. Maybe if you manage to barf again…? Another page of green-faced barfers—clown, caterpillar, leprechaun, etc.—and the little girl recaps. Archie barfs again, and she finds her other sock! Carlson’s cartoons are as goofily gross as the text, but they exert a sort of cute fascination anyway.

A delightful and helpful treatment of a somewhat taboo topic. (Picture book. 3-6)

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