The boy narrator of this wry tale with a gentle message discovers that you can't judge a person by his appearance.
Marshall Armstrong arrives in Ms. Wright's elementary school classroom with a jacket and tie and a straw hat on his head. "He looks different to me," says the redheaded narrator, wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Ms. Wright seats Marshall in the front row, next to the narrator. David Mackintosh (Rex) gets the observations just right. The narrator notes that Marshall's hair "reminds me of driving in the countryside to visit Grandma," and a circular image shows tiny cars driving through his part line. All of Marshall's foods come neatly packaged ("We call it 'space food' "), and he reads the newspaper rather than watch TV. When Marshall invites the class to his birthday party, the redheaded boy suspects the worst ("We won't eat fancy birthday cake or drink soda... and he'll make us read the newspaper with his dad").
The illustration of Marshall Armstrong's spectacular house, in an explosion of color, however, indicates the fun in store for the birthday guests. Mackintosh's orderly compositions, with plenty of white space early in the book, morph into kinetic pictures in tropical colors--much like the surprises awaiting Marshall's classmates. The kids rebuild a train set, play hide-and-seek throughout the house and look at "the sky through a telescope, and through a microscope at the cut on Jane's arm." The good-natured humor of the picture book will quickly make it a favorite with children, while the moral will please the adults who read with them. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness