Sometimes You Barf
Age 5+
Picture Storybooks
A compassionate look at a scary and sometimes embarrassing rite of passage
Everybody 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!
Creators
Nancy Carlson is the author and illustrator of over 60 picture books including bestseller I Like Me! Nancy graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. When Nancy is not drawing pictures and writing stories you can find her hiking, biking, or playing golf!
Reviews
A straight-talking young girl candidly discusses the fear and embarrassment of throwing up at school. When the flu bug strikes, she starts ‘to feel queasy,’ and all efforts to resist being sick prove futile. The aftermath include a janitor cleaning up the classroom and a respite in the nurse’s office. Following a few days of rest and recuperation at home, the child returns to school, and the text reads, ‘No one will be mad at you for barfing….You have a great day, even though…you have to retake the math test you barfed on.’ Carlson’s cartoon illustrations have just the right dose of gross detail. Endpapers reiterate the message that ‘Everyone barfs once in a while’ and showcase dozens of green-faced animals, people, and even a snowman. Getting sick is never fun, but this reassuring and humorous book makes the experience much more tolerable
School Library Journal
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! Everybody 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.
Kirkus Reviews
Readers need but glance at the endpapers, crammed with green-faced, bulgy-cheeked critters, to know what to expect here: vomit, and lots of it. Though fictional, Carlson’s book acts as practical what-to-expect guide for losing your lunch. A straight-talking young lass gets us off to a ralphing good start: a two-page spread of spewing animals, from bugs to platypuses. Everyone, you see, engages in the ol’ Technicolor yawn. For a dog, explains the girl, hurling is no biggie, ‘but barfing is scary to a kid!’ She recounts how an ‘icky flu bug’ (from a school lunch, natch) makes her queasy and how she tries to resist horking, but, ultimately, upchuck will not be denied. ‘When you barf at school,’ she adds, ‘be prepared, because everyone will go nuts!’ Yes, schooltime cookie tossings are traumatic—no one likes to see the janitor and his ‘special barf cleanup machine’—but Carlson’s message is that it’s normal, temporary, and you’ll even be welcomed back. Giddily illustrated with glorious cartoon grossness, this is a great normalizing device for all those reluctant regurgitators out there.
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