Let's Do Nothing!

Let's Do Nothing!
by Tony Fucile
***
5-8
In Let's Do Nothing! two young boys have done everything there is to do; played every sport, painted every picture, read every book, so the decide to do nothing.  It turns out doing nothing is a lot harder than it seems; the boys try to sit without moving or speaking but their imaginations' run away from them! They realize it's impossible to do nothing.

This book reminded me of when I was a kid and my best friend and I would feel like there was nothing fun to do but our boredom never lasted long before we invented some silly new game.  As a kid it is easy to entertain yourself because everything is an adventure.  You see early in the book how creative the boys are so of course when they have to sit still they can't resist their imaginations and soon they are the empire state building being scaled by King Kong.  I also enjoyed their dynamic; one boy seems to have great knowledge of doing nothing and has to teach the other.  This always seems to be the case with best friends, one usually takes the lead.  The illustrations done in ink, acrylic and colored pencil really tell the story.  The story starts a few pages before the title page with sketches of the boys doing different activites which show them doing everything together.  Most of the book is sketches of the two boys against a white background but their expressions are so animated they create the characters.  The isolation of the characters illlustrates that the friends are in their own world.  When teir imagination gets the better of them the pictures become full page and brightly colored. 

I think children would find this book hilarious. They could definitely relate to the close friendship and the endless energy of the characters.  The entire story is dialogue between the two boys which is different than most books for young readers.  This book would be a good introduction into that perspective.  The students could hear a story told through converstaion rather than a story in which the plot is narrated.  At the end of the story the characters realize that it is impossible to do nothing because even doing "nothing" is something.  This would be a good example of being resourceful.  I would talk about how even when it seems like there is nothing to do your imagination is endless.  Children would also love when we see the boys become inanimate objects with their imagination.  We could talk about times we have had to be resourceful, what kind of activites we have created and how we use our imagination.