Children's Fiction Humorous Stories
Max Todd's Frantic Friend Countdown
- Publisher
- Formac Publishing Company Limited
- Initial publish date
- Oct 2024
- Category
- Humorous Stories, Imagination & Play, Special Needs, Neurodiversity, Chapter Books
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781459507678
- Publish Date
- Oct 2024
- List Price
- $9.99
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781459507593
- Publish Date
- Oct 2024
- List Price
- $16.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
Max is the only kid in class without a best friend. Lucky for him there’s a new kid in school, but after Max makes a bad first impression, he is going to need a second chance to befriend Shiv.
While Max’s games usually keep his Super Fidgets at bay, this one is all about showing Shiv what a great friend he would be. After the game leads to terrible second, third and fourth impressions, Max learns that making new friends is not about playing games, but about being yourself.
Full colour illustrations and fun typography bring Max to life and make this book accessible to readers of all levels.
About the authors
L. M. NICODEMO is an elementary school teacher who hopes that this series will mark the beginning of a long and joyful career in writing. She lives with her family in southwestern Ontario.
Look! Look what I've done!! The words of an eight year old as he holds up the drawing of a vibrant red fire engine. Oh Graham, that's wonderful.
Really? Oh this is good. You draw a picture and you get a reaction. I could get into this! And so it began. The seed was planted, further watered by bedtime rituals of propping pillows up against his bedroom wall getting into bed to get lost in a family member's reading of The Wind in the Willows.
An unintended lesson learned through those readings that our intrepid illustrator still calls upon in his illustration work is that the viewer will take different things from the illustration and he will add elements to the illustration that may go over some heads, but others will catch them and smile. There's always something to look at.
A graduate of the illustration program at Sheridan College in Ontario, Graham thought he would stick around the big smoke and in addition to his work as a designer at Canadian publisher McClelland & Stewart, he would also cultivate his Flock of Seagulls hair style and work on his dance floor moves. But alas soon follicles started to recede and shoulder pads deflated, so Graham moved back to his hometown of Ottawa, Ontario to contemplate his next career move.
It was in Ottawa that Graham began his freelance illustration and graphic design career. A career that has spawned illustrations for such publishers as Orca Book Publishers, Scholastic Canada, and Meadowside Books of the United Kingdom, as well as numerous Canadian government agencies and private design firms.
He lives in Merrickville, Ontario with a circus star family: his juggling wife, a helldriver daughter, a canine cannonball, and a fire breathing cat.
Editorial Reviews
"The target audience will surely have no trouble relating to the storylines. The blend of fun graphics by Graham Ross, with varying sizes and designs of text in the quickly paced 96 pages, will be appealing to both beginning and reluctant readers.
The series is written by a teacher who clearly has insight into the mind of a child who feels the type of anxiety that Max does. . . these books will serve as inspiration to children facing the same difficulties with their own Super Fidgets.."
"Frantic Friend Countdown puts simple, comic-style illustrations together with a bold, blocky typeface and a day-in-the-life narrative to stir the interest of young readers, most especially those who find other early chapter books a little too difficult to read. The overall look is similar to the "Dork Diaries", "Diary of a Wimpy Kid", or "Alvin Ho" series titles but contains much fewer words than any of them and has very simple writing. The contents page shows 11 chapters, however, and each chapter is announced with a page break and special header, modeling the structure of most grownup novels. The page-by-page design is more open and clean than, say, "Geronimo Stilton" titles, with the illustrations showcasing the object or person of interest without being distractingly detailed. Max is a cheerful, good-natured boy who tries to enjoy his daily school life while being archenemies with his neighbour Mandy Beth - a dependable formula for school stories.
Recommended."
CM Magazine
Other titles by
Other titles by
Max Todd and the School Trip Squirmies
Max Todd and the Flu Shot Frenzies
Max Todd's Camping Chaos
Max Todd Gets the Super Fidgets
Max Todd's Big Game Jitters
The DATA Set Ten-Book Collection (Boxed Set)
March of the Mini Beasts; Don't Disturb the Dinosaurs; The Sky Is Falling; Robots Rule the School; A Case of the Clones; Invasion of the Insects; Out of Remote Control; Down the Brain Drain; S.O.S. from Outer Space; The Revenge of Dr. von Naysayer
School Trip Squirmies
Camping Chaos
The DATA Set Collection #2 (Boxed Set)
A Case of the Clones; Invasion of the Insects; Out of Remote Control; Down the Brain Drain
