Score One for the Sloths - Rilegato

An amusing, if decidedly sleepy, tale of sloths and the very relaxing atmosphere of their school-an institution thrown in jeporady by a bureaucrat of conventional stripe-from the hand-and-glove team behind Tacky the Penguin and Wodney Wat. Sleepy Valley Sloth School lives up to its name: nobody here but drowsy sloths. They snooze through their lessons-so do their teachers-through their recess, through their study hall. They sleep "until six o'clock when the custodian swept them out, and they rolled home.". . . One day a disruptive influence makes the scene: ayoung fireplug of a sloth named Sparky, who tries to light some fire under her classmates. . . "'What a bunch of bores.'" she signs. Then a real boar pushes through the door, an operative from the Society for Organizing Sameness, come to close the school for failing in all subjects. Sparky saves the school by dazzling the organization man with feats of reading, music, math, and poetry. Who says sloths are underachievers? They're being sloths, and just how many creatures have had their name elevated to a common adjective? Only Munsinger could so perfectly catch them in all their languid glory, from the opening page when they are quite literally "just hanging around" as loose-limbed and zonked-out as anything ever seen, to as nearly awake as a sloth can get while piled up in a heap trying to pay attention. And the belly laughs induced by Lester's words will Kirkus Reviews with Pointers

"Score another one for Lester and Munsinger, Readers will hope the sloths return for a rematch." —Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly

"Lester’s laid-back text is packed with silly puns, and Munsinger’s hilariously detailed line-and-watercolor pictures express the delicious relaxation of Sleepy Valley Sloth School, where everyone, teachers and kids, literally hangs around." Booklist, ALA