OKie Dokie articokie

Okie, Dokie, Artichokie! Written by: Grace Lin
Okie, dokie, Artichoie the famous saying for many in the United States now make its debut as a title for very adorable story about a monkey named Marklee living in 4B and a new neighbor, Artichokie a giraffe now living in 3B. The story takes place in December close to Christmas when the plot truly starts with Marklee is first meeting with the new neighbor, Artichokie and telling him that if he ever gets too loud just to knock on the ceiling and Marklee will quiet down. Marklee soon realizes that the events of his daily life such as the alarm going off, blow drying his hair, and talking on the telephone all receives knocks through the floor from Artichokie. In an annoyed attempt to go and talk to Artichokie about his absurd knocking, Artichokie doesn’t answer leaving Marklee angry. So when Marklee accidently gets Artichokie’s Christmas mail he decided to just throw it away instead of giving it to him. In the end Marklee sees that what he has done is very wrong and decides to return the mail to Artichokie only to realize that the present was ceiling pillows because Artichokie kept hitting the ceiling on the account of his long neck. After having seen the misunderstanding the two ended up spending the whole day together and became great friends!

This detailed picture story book has great plot that could bring any child in, especially with the characters being animals. The pictures in this book are naïve but also very detailed which is a great combination. Every turn has a page full with a picture and the other with the writing to follow you along with the plot which also incorporates pictures as well. In one spread of the story book is a four picture layout of all the things that Marklee is doing to get knocks from Artichokie which was a great addition and change to the books other spreads. The pictures also give great aside to the characters such as when Marklee is knocking on Artichokie’s door to speak to Artichokie about his absurd knocks; Artcichokie doesn’t answer because he has head phones on although Marklee doesn’t know that! The strength is the plot and pictures, of course and after careful review of this book I honestly could not find one flaw. I would recommend using it in the classroom for multiple reasons. You could use it in the preschool grades as well as the kindergarten grade. In the preschool grades you may have to read it aloud because there is quite a bit of smaller text and in the kindergarten class you may be able to let the children read it themselves as a beginning reader picture book. This book could be read to teach about friendships and how it is good to work at them. This book could also teach how to talk things out; leading to a discussion about disagreements and how to resolve them. This book is a great find- read it!