Flavorful fun

Best buds Harry and Horsie, creations of author Katie Van Camp and illustrator Lincoln Agnew, get an attack of the munchies.  They must have cookies not apples, cheese or carrot sticks but cookies.  Mom (you know how Moms are) puts that jar of sugary treats too high for our comrades. 

But as always, Horsie knew exactly what to do. 

Cookiebot!: a Harry and Horsie Adventure follows young Harry and his ever present stuffed toy, Horsie on their newest escapade.

Toolbox in hand, intricate blueprint spread before them, the duo gets busy and makes...Cookiebot!

Harry rides the heights inside their robot who once turned on does reach through the window grabbing  a chocolate chip cookie for Horsie but goes absolutely wild when reaching for another, eating the entire jar of cookies. 

Much like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Monster in Ghostbusters he lurches his way down Fifth Avenue in search of more cookies.  Horsie, help! With no off switch what else can Harry do? 

The aroma of more sweets fills Cookiebots' nose and he climbs to the top of the Empire Sweets Cafe.

Where is the heroic Horsie?  Can he save his young friend Harry in time? 

Katie Van Camp knows exactly which words will appeal to her readers mixing them together to make a delicious treat that will become a story time favorite.  Her web site has offerings that will appeal to kids, parents and teachers.

Lincoln Agnew describes the technique he used with the first Harry and Horsie book in an interview at The Casual Optimist blog on September 4, 2009 : My process is clumsy at best, I fumble around with rough outlines, scanners, photocopiers, pencil crayons, ink pens, sandpaper and computers. It’s a struggle, nothing really comes easy and there’s only a small window of time before the love turns to hate.
Originally getting inspiration from vintage toys his 1950s retro like designs in yellow, blue and red have timeless appeal to the kid in everyone.  His varied use of horizontal one page, divided page and two page spreads coupled with a vertical two page spread flow seamlessly complimenting the storyline




I can see using this book as a lead-in to a nonfiction mini-research on horses, robots or movies with monsters. I can envision it as the beginning of a unit on listing and how-to-directions for the ultimate cookie or something else of my students' design. I'm ready already for another helping of Harry and Horsie.  More please!