Serious Trouble
Written and illustrated by
Arthur Howard
Arthur Howard, 2003
The colorful artwork and catchy title on the cover
of this book grabbed my attention! In
this story, King Olaf and Queen Olive are serious about everything, and they
expect their son Ernest to be serious too.
However, he is not; he loves having fun and making people laugh, and one
day he wants to be a jester. His father
insists there is no time for being silly, especially when there is a
fire-breathing, people-eating, three-headed dragon in the kingdom! One day while outside the castle, Ernest encounters
the dragon and can’t get away unless he makes the dragon laugh. Will he be able to get away from the dragon,
and can he save the rest of the kingdom?
Find out in Serious Trouble by Arthur Howard!
I enjoyed looking at Arthur Howard’s
fun and comical illustrations in this book.
He used bright, contrasting colors to go along with the fun text of the
story. He employed both doublespreads
and singles to display his illustrations.
I could not find the medium that Howard used when illustrating this book,
but it appears that he used pen-and-ink and watercolor.
This fun book could be used in any
classroom ranging from kindergarten to third grade. It could be used to encourage students to be
themselves. If Ernest had tried to be
like everyone else, the dragon would still be terrorizing the kingdom! This story could also be used in a compare
and contrast lesson. The students could
compare Ernest to his parents, and they could compare themselves to Ernest and
his parents to see who they resembled the most. Furthermore, this story could be used when
studying synonyms. The words “serious”
and “funny” are used frequently throughout the book, so the students could come
up with synonyms for these words.
Overall, this story could be used in a variety of ways in the classroom
and would be a fun addition to any elementary teacher’s collection.
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