BIBLIOGRAPHY
Colon, Raul. 2004. ORSON BLASTS OFF. New York, NY: Atheneum. ISBN 0689842783
PLOT SUMMARY
A young boy, Orson, becomes bored within moments of his computer
breaking. Weasel, the jack-in-the-box,
comes to life and tells Orson to “kindly step outside.” Orson and Weasel go on
a fabulous journey to Antarctica, survive a hurricane, travel through space,
and even pop through a black hole. When they
return home, Weasel un-animates and Orson decides to go play outside.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
In the spirit of Where the Wild
Things Are, ORSON BLASTS OFF captures the adventures of a young boy
escaping his real life problem by taking a magical adventure. At first I am tempted to believe it is a
take-off on the formerly mentioned classic tale, but although I can find a
substantial number of similarities, the story takes a different approach to the
fantastical adventure with quite a few skillfully crafted literary and artistic
elements. The exquisite illustrations
leaping out of the page and the dialogue of the characters keeps the reader
intrigued from start to finish.
Colon creates two very unique characters through his word choices. There is a continual dialogue between them
throughout the story that shows Orson’s youth, “This is so cool!” and his creativity, “I have an idea that should get us
out of here.” Weasel is set apart as an
older, proper character with his “Respectfully, sir, it is not I…” Colon also
seamlessly connects the real to the fantastical and each setting change using a
cleverly worded pun (“one whale of a tale” becomes “one tail of a whale”). Colon does not confine his words to boxes,
fonts, or sizes. His words move across
illustrations, out of boxes, and across the page depending on the
situation.
Colon’s images are no different. Some
of them start in boxes and pop out of them, some of them tumble across a page,
and some pages are full of nothing but illustrations. His artwork is beautiful and
imaginative. He creates smaller images
when Orson is in the “real” world and larger images to show when he is in the “fantasy”
world. The illustrations work hand in
hand with the puns to connect the changing settings throughout the story.
The theme of this story book is implicit, but clearly shown. It is current and relevant to issues students
are facing in this digital age.
AWARDS AND REVIEWS
*School Library Journal:
“A flight not only into imaginary realms but also into the delicious world
of language awaits readers in this fanciful journey.”
*Starred review in Booklist: “The
clever story …will draw children right into Orson’s daydream world.”
CONNECTIONS
*To continue the theme of leaving behind technology, pair
this book with FAVORITE THINGS by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley.
*Also connect this story to DRAW!, also by Colon, to see more
of this same theme.
*Raul Colon is also the illustrator of:
MY MAMA HAD A DANCING HEART by Libba Moore Gray
RISE THE MOON by Eileen Spinelli (His work in this book is
called “beautiful” in a starred review by Booklist)
(photos taken from https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=orson+blasts+off)
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