17 Things I'm Not Allowed to Do Anymore

by Jenny Offill

Book Overview

I had an idea to staple my brother's hair to his pillow. I am not allowed to use the stapler anymore. Here's a kid full of ideas, all day long. For example, in the morning, gluing her brother's bunny... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375835962
• ISBN13: 9780375835964
• Release Date: December 2006
• Publisher: Schwartz & Wade Books
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 11.3" x 9.8"
• Age Range: 4 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

My Daughter Loves It!

I read the reviews before ordering this book and was a bit concerned: reviewers either hated it or loved it. Now I know why. It is a wonderful book if your child has a good connection to reality (that is, they know the difference between fantasy and reality ... they know imaginary friends aren't real) because it is fun. My 5-1/2 year old daughter makes my wife read it to her twice in a row each night. Yes, it does have a page where it mentions showing underwear ... I am sure this horrifies some parents. My kid went by that page and never gave it a thought ... I don't think this book will turn my daughter into a harlot! :-) It is fun. It is interesting. It pushes some boundaries. But I don't worry my daughter will be stapling anyone to a pillow ... I set a good example of appropriate behavior that no book is going to unsettle! I have come back to add another observation: I believe that censoring everything to which a child is exposed so that only "model" behavior is experienced serves to handicap them. A child must learn to deal with ambiguity, to make right choices, to know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, and this is impossible if the world is always presented in perfection. If one is offended by the book ending it should become a huge opportunity to explore the subtleties involved with a child who is likely at the right age to consider such things relevant.

Incredibly Funny

A hilarious and cheeky heroine who is creative and original but doesn't have a clue about political correctness. Her love of beavers and walking backwards shows her to be a young lady who will make her unique way in the world as she grows up. Jenny Offill has created a memorable character; I hope we see more of her. Nancy Carpenter's illustrations are wonderful - the mix of media and the use of line and color make me smile every time I open the book. It's interesting that some reviewers here are so disapproving of the main character's lack of true contrition at the end of the story. Perhaps they prefer the idea of the compliant child who never has an original thought or entertains an outrageous idea. Lighten up a bit, folks; this book is out-and-out, roll-in-the-aisles funny.

Imaginative and Hilarious

Ingenious and imaginative artwork-a flawless marriage of digital imagery and pen-and-ink is the focus of this hilarious winning title. In it, an incorrigible little girl lists all the bright ideas she's ever had and the various ways they've gotten her into trouble. Some picture books are overdesigned, and generally overdone, but this one is just about picture-perfect

One thing you should do right away ... read this book!

The girl on the cover is the kind of willful, recidivist imp whose imaginary friends must all be nervous around her. We start with her stapling her brother's hair to the pillow, and it goes downhill from there. She walks backwards to school--stopping traffic--and flashes her panties and, oh dear, just about everything awful. And awfully funny. Each page repeats, "I had an idea to do X ... I'm not allowed to do X anymore," which gets more brazen and amusing as her calculated terrors add up. The pen-and-ink characters are fully realized, including our mussy-haired protagonist, drawn with a minimalist's attention to each stroke of the pen. They inhabit a digitally remade world of "real" artifacts refitted to the page, even down to their plastic desks or the crossing guard's vest. This is a brilliantly executed concept, dropping simple figures into a complex environment; even the text was printed out, crumpled and roughed up with an emory board to achieve that faux stressed look that fits the girl's blithely destructive personality. But will a real kid appreciate all this? Only if she's old enough to pretend not to know better.

A humorous picturebook about a mischievous young girl whose bright ideas cause one heap of trouble a

The debut children's book of author Jenny Offill, illustrated by award-winning artist Nancy Carpenter, 17 Things I'm Not Allowed To Do Anymore is a humorous picturebook about a mischievous young girl whose bright ideas cause one heap of trouble after another. The rhyming couplets follow how each of her ideas results in a personal ban: "I had an idea to staple my brother's hair to his pillow. / I am not allowed to use the stapler anymore. / I had an idea to order a different dinner from my mother. / I am not allowed to pretend my mother is a waitress anymore." But the precocious young girl gets the last laugh when she figures something out: "I had an idea to say the opposite of what I mean to trick everyone. ('I'm Sorry') / I am allowed to say the opposite of what I mean forevermore." Of especial note is the striking color illustrations that usually incorporate a photographic object, such as a stapler or a glue bottle, into the freehand-style, sketchy main pictures.