BABYMOUSE: Bad Babysitter

Babymouse: Bad Babysitter is written by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm. It was published in 2015 by Random House Children's Books.

Lexile level: GN220L      Ages: 7-10

Summary:

     Babymouse found an expensive sooper scooter in a magazine but was to expensive for her. As soon as Babymouse is offered a babysitting job from Penny, even with her lack of experience she thought YES! I will get enough money to buy the scooter. First, she babysat for Mrs. Ladybug it turned into a disastrous time. Then she recieves a call from a family with three monkey triplets, without hesitation she takes the job because all she can think about is the scooter. Again it did not turn out very good. Despite her failures she takes another job with a owl family. She succeeds! She helps the shy owl come out of his shell and make friends on the playground. She saved up enough money to but her sooper scooter and felt good because she earned it.

Evaluation and illustrations:

     One negative about Babymouse: Bad Babysitter is it a book that appeals to girls more than boys. The whole book is black, white, and pink and the page numbers are heart shaped. This may make a boy embarrassed to read a novel that is full of hearts and pink. I have talked to a group of students at my placement about the Babymouse books and only girls had read the book. I think if not all of the books had hearts and pink more boys would be appealed.

      On a positive note, Babymouse is filled with themes that students can relate to. For example, hard working students are often hard working and trying the best they can to earn good grades we see through Babymouse that hard work can pay off.

 Literary elements:

There are a couple themes in Babymouse: Bad Babysitter and those are the power and importance of friendship, facing and overcoming fears with the help of friends, family, and creative thinking, the gift of giving is more powerful than that of receiving, and working hard. Babymouse got the opportunity to babysit even though she had no experience. Despite this she ended up having a positive influence on an owl that helps her reach her goal of buying the sooper scooter. There is also onomatopoeia throughout the story. On occasion there are words like hop, zoom, sploosh, ring, whunk, etc. There is also foreshadowing in Babymouse. We see it when Penny offers the babysitting job to Babymouse and she gets nervous and mentions she has never babysat before. It foreshadows how her experience will go.



1. Themes: facing fears, creative, working hard
2. Onomatopoeia: zoom, hop, sploosh
3. Foreshadowing: Never babysat before so it will turn out bad

In the Classroom:

     This text could be used in the classroom as an example of graphic novels and how they are written. Some students enjoy writting graphic novel stories rather that regular stories and the Babymouse series is a positive example.
       A mini-lesson for this book or series is to teach inferences. A activity could be to search and discuss the many wisdoms and truths Babymouse learns in each book. Discuss how wise or somewhat misgiving they may be and why. 

   
Holm, J. L., & Holm, M. (2015). Babymouse: bad babysitter. New York: Random House.