One Big Pair of Underwear

by Laura Gehl, Tom Lichtenheld (Illustrator)

Overview

Count and share with…underwear! Come along on a zany adventure with hilarious pictures from the New York Times bestselling illustrator of Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site.

What’s one thing that two bears, three yaks, four goats, and six cats have in common?

They hate to share.

But look out—here comes a pack of twenty pigs ready to prove that sharing makes everything twice as fun!

This seriously silly picture book with artwork by the New York Times bestselling illustrator of Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site irresistibly combines the concepts of counting and sharing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442453364
Publisher:	Beach Lane Books
Publication date:	09/09/2014
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	373,476
Product dimensions:	10.30(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD420L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Laura Gehl makes her picture book debut with One Big Pair of Underwear. She lives with her husband and their four kids in Silver Spring, Maryland. Visit her online at LauraGehl.com.

Tom Lichtenheld has illustrated several New York Times bestselling picture books, including Shark vs. Train; Duck! Rabbit!; and Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site. He lives with his wife in Illinois. Visit him at TomLichtenheld.com.

Editorial Reviews

06/30/2014
Though nominally about underwear, always an attention getter, Gehl’s debut offers lessons in counting and cooperation. In each example, the number of desirable items (“FIVE flat mats”) is too few for the animals that want them (“SIX fat cats”), and one leaves disappointed (“One fat cat thinks, Rats! Rats! Rats!”). Absurdity reigns. Five goats cannot apportion four jars of candy, nine ducks have only eight hockey sticks, and the underwear of the title is coveted by “TWO brown bears who hate to share.” At last, 20 pigs demonstrate, albeit dangerously, that they all can use 10 playground slides at the same time, and the rest of the animals pool their resources too: “Goats and ducks share candy bars,/ hockey fun, and empty jars.” Gehl’s tongue-twisting rhymes bounce along winningly, and Lichtenheld (This Is a Moose) gamely pictures the silly activities, from water-skiing cows and scooter-riding seals to twin bears stuffed into a single pair of Y-fronts. This amusing tale of sharing eschews the preachy and relies on nonsense to get readers giggling. Ages 4–8. Illustrator’s agent: Amy Rennert, Amy Rennert Agency. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Take one counting book, mix it with a comical tale of underwear-sharing, add some tongue-twisting rhymes, and soon there will be uncontrollable laughter....The rhymes follow familiar spelling patterns (including -ack, -eal, -ar, -at, -ook, and the nervous-making -uck), making this a perfect book for new readers (think Hop on Pop). The goofy situations are made even goofier through Lichtenheld’s familiar and fabulous digitally colored pencil illustrations: it’s hard to keep a straight face when cats are blowing up air mattresses or baboons are playing trombones. The final exuberant parade, and the quietly amusing endpapers, ensure that this will be a popular book for storyhours and independent reading alike. Who knew sharing could be so much fun?

Horn Book

"[A] cunning concept that enlivens the standard counting book with a soupçon of subtraction and a touch of tongue-twisting in the tightly packed rhymes, and it brings some welcome comedy to the venerable but often unexciting topic of sharing. Lichtenheld’s pencil and digital color illustrations are robust yet helter-skelter, with pages rife with motion lines and expressions cinematically exaggerated. The animals are neatly and countably arrayed in tidy tripartite layouts that are effectively counter- balanced with airy spot art. The figures are no dull clones, though: position, dress, and even commentary subtly distinguish them, and the poor excluded animals range from the thunderously angry to the melodramatically sad. The bounce of the verse will keep the interest even of youngsters not ready for the math, and kids who’ve progressed beyond basic counting books will be intrigued by the challenge and delighted by the comedy."
11/10/14 03:06:05 PM

December 2014 - Starred Review Bulletin

The word underwear is enough to make kids erupt in giggles. But when two bears contemplate sharing one pair of underwear, youngsters will be rolling in the aisles. Add rhymes, tongue twisters, and alliteration into the mix, and you’ll find spirited entertainment in this picture-book introduction to basic concepts. A joy to read aloud with its well-paced rhythms...Placed on crisp white backgrounds, the digitally colored pencil illustrations are full of charm and humor. With a unique method of introducing subtraction, this wholly engaging title will be requested over and over again.

Booklist Starred Review

The word underwear is enough to make kids erupt in giggles. But when two bears contemplate sharing one pair of underwear, youngsters will be rolling in the aisles. Add rhymes, tongue twisters, and alliteration into the mix, and you’ll find spirited entertainment in this picture-book introduction to basic concepts. A joy to read aloud with its well-paced rhythms...Placed on crisp white backgrounds, the digitally colored pencil illustrations are full of charm and humor. With a unique method of introducing subtraction, this wholly engaging title will be requested over and over again.

Booklist Starred Review

08/01/2014
PreS-K—The title of this book, combined with its cover illustration of two impish bears in a giant pair of underwear, hints at such a silly story that readers may be disappointed to find that it is, essentially, a counting book with a sharing theme. Two bears, three yaks, four seals, and so on all hate to share, and there is never enough of whatever they want to go around. Then 20 pigs come on the scene and demonstrate how to share 10 slides by going down two at a time, piggyback style. Gehl's sunny, rhyming text never misses a beat, and Lichtenheld's sprightly, silly pencil-and-digital-color illustrations are a perfect match.—Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD

School Library Journal

2014-06-30
Share and share alike!Gehl's debut picture-book text is a silly romp of a counting book with a lesson in sharing to boot. Its rhyming text opens with a giggle-inspiring dilemma: "ONE big pair of underwear. / TWO brown bears who hate to share. ONE bear wears the underwear. // ONE bear growls, ‘That isn't fair!' " Ensuing pages display similarly silly conundrums: only two snacks for three yaks, just five pillows and mats for six sleepy cats, and so on. The only thing that these creatures seem to share is a case of the greedies. For every situation, the one who comes up short is less-than-pleased, with the excluded cat, for example, thinking "Rats! Rats! Rats!" as it inflates an air mattress (which has a hole in it). Such comical twists abound in Lichtenheld's illustrations, which more than hold their own against the text's goofy details and seem like they would translate well into animation. Ultimately, a group of 20 pigs amicably share just 10 playground slides, and seeing this, the bears are inspired to share their underwear, as depicted in the cover art. The other animals follow suit, and all's well that ends well—even if the text credits the underwear, rather than the (ironically) generous pigs, for inspiring the feel-good camaraderie at book's end.A picture book to count on for delightful shared reading. (Picture book 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews