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How amazing is kid logic? Do you remember digging in the ground, convinced that a stick you found was definitely a dinosaur bone? Or, being certain that you were on the case of a serious mystery on your cul-de-sac? My 6 year old routinely tells me that she’s an expert gymnast (never had a lesson) and about all the World Records she’s preparing to break. It’s this brand of grandiose, self-assured kid logic that fuels the marvelously funny antics in the Captain Jimmy Cook and Alice Toolie books by Kate and Jol Temple.
Jimmy Cook – that’s Captain Jimmy Cook to you – is a 3rd grader who shares a name with the famous explorer James Cook. Jimmy fancies himself a fellow-explorer, and wears a Captain Cook costume for authenticity. He’s “basically an expert” in everything from ancient Egypt to space travel.
We first meet Jimmy in Captain Jimmy Cook Discovers Third Grade. He comes to us in the form of his “captain’s log,” which is his take on his school history assignment to keep a diary (diaries are for girls, logs are for real explorers). Jimmy embarks on a mission to win a trip to Hawaii – through cereal box top collection – to follow in Captain Cook’s footsteps. He has a lot of obstacles to overcome, including saving the class axolotyl, getting dragged along on his mum’s shopping trips, and his classmate nemesis, Alice Toolie, who would also like to go to Hawaii. When Jimmy is on a mission, a lot of things may go wrong, but he doesn’t take his eye off the prize.
More Jimmy antics follow in Captain Jimmy Cook Discovers X Marks the Spot, which finds Jimmy digging up the school playground on a “secret” dinosaur dig, and starting a hysteria when he finds a “real” treasure map. You start to see where Jimmy got his inventive streak when he and his dad work together on a new robot.
Jon Foye illustrates the Captain Jimmy Cook books, including the funny objects he has at at the beginning of each chapter.
A new voice is added with Yours Troolie, Alice Toolie, in which Jimmy and his enemy, the overachieving Alice Toolie, are forced to write letters to each other by their (probably long-suffering) teacher, Ms Fennel. Jimmy has really met his match with Alice, whose enthusiasm is at least equal to Jimmy’s, only hers is more directed towards glitter, dance competitions, and being the best at everything. The two of them reluctantly team up to solve the mystery of the school bathroom ghost.
Alice and Jimmy are back in epistolary form in the new Birthday Wars. It’s a crisis when Jimmy and Alice plan their birthday parties on the same day, and neither of them are wiling to back down. Their attempts to come to a fair decision on who must move their party through cake bake offs, jelly bean counting, and more are foiled at every turn.
The Alice Toolie books are illustrated by Grace West, who does a brilliant job of making the pages look like letters really passed between kids.
Why We Love These Books
Miss 6 and I are in agreement on our love for this book series. For her, she thinks they’re hilarious and she’s often gasping at how far Jimmy and Alice go with their plots. She loves the illustrations in the Alice Toolie books so much that I’ve photocopied pages so that she could color them. As for me, the kid-narration is so earnestly written, that I get a huge kick out of reading these books aloud. Every wild thing that Jimmy and Alice do makes perfect sense to them. I also love imagining how much patience their parents and teachers must have to muster with these energetic kids!
These books will appeal to both boys and girls, and it’s not necessary to read them in order. The recommended age for these books is 7+, though we’ve been enjoying them as read-alouds since age 5.
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