The Boy Who Burped Too Much

by Scott Nickel

Bobby discovers how to control his uncontrollable burping.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Humor, Childrens, Juvenile

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Growing up, Scott Nickel wanted to be a comic book writer or a mad scientist. As an adult, he gets to do both. In his secret literary lab, Scott has created more than a dozen graphic novels for Stone Arch Books featuring time travel, zombies, robots, giant insects, and mutant lunch ladies. Scott's NIGHT OF THE HOMEWORK ZOMBIES received the 2007 Golden Duck award for Best Science Fiction Picture Book.

When not creating crazy comics, Scott squeezes in a full-time job as a writer and editor at Jim Davis' Garfield studio.

Check out Scott’s monstrously funny syndicated comic strip, EEK!, at Go Comics: http://www.gocomics.com/eek/

Reviews

[Carl Tolle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The reason I rate this book five stars is because it was a good book. If you like burp humor you will like this book. My favorite part was when he won the spelling bee.

[Honey Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love you too .
Sweetie pie

[Hayden B]

Good but to short

[Chasen Meirovits · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book The Boy Who Burped Too Much by Scott Nickel is based on a boy named Bobby Aaron who was just a typical kid who enjoyed playing baseball, video games, drawing pictures and other activities kids his age enjoyed doing. Bobby had just one problem though, he had uncontrollable burping problems and was not able to get rid of it. He would burp all day and all night and everywhere else he went, like at the movies, his sister's dance recitals, and worst of all his school's library. He would be punished in school for his inappropriate actions and would be sent to the principle's office almost every day. One day in his class, the teacher announced there would be a spelling bee and that they would be sending the best speller in the school, which just so happened to be Bobby. He began to worry though what would happen if he burped in the middle of spelling a word so he and his friend spent hours trying to find a cure. Nothing was working until Bobby made a visit to his grandpa who gave I'm a lucky frog to hold on to, telling him that it would solve his burping problem. At the spelling bee, Bobby ends up losing his lucky frog, but somehow manages to get through the whole competition without burping once. From that day forward, Bobby never burped in school or in quiet places again.

The genre of the book was clearly comedy and humor because of the silly subject that the book is based on. The panels were structured differently on each page and the number of panels per page were quite different on some pages. The panels were read from top to bottom on each page and what was interesting was that there were sometimes no panels on some of the pages which made following the story a little harder due to there being no direction of where to start reading. There were no double page spreads and on one page there was just one panel which I found unique. The panels were bordered and there was little white space used in between. The white space, if any, guided the reader to understand the next segment of the story and showed the next action that occurred between the characters. The word balloons had a major effect on the story because the word "burp" resembles a sound and that term was shown as a sound effect on almost every page. There were some cases where the emotions of a certain character were shown by using the sound effects. For instance, when one of the other people in the spelling bee got upset for not spelling the word correctly, the sound "GRRRR" was used to convey her feelings at that moment. The word balloons allowed the reader to follow the actions of the characters and understand what was happening in the story. Like I mentioned earlier, the fact that there weren't panels on every page was interesting because there was a lot going on in those instances and also the fact that the images really supported the text and brought it to life. The target audience was probably Kindergarten to 2nd graders. I was overall happy with the way this book was made, regardless of how immature the topic was and I enjoyed how the author and illustrator worked really well together to create a memorable and funny book that a younger audience would enjoy.

[Mrswash]

The Boy who Burped too much is a good read. The graphic novel reads like a movie; even the pages resemble a reel. The book contains a list of characters, the story, about the author and illustrator, the glossary, clouds explaining burps, discussion questions, and writing prompts. The illustrations are nice, and bright. Bobby can not stop burping, he has tried everything, but now he has been chosen to participate in the spelling bee. He fears that he will never be able to stop the burping in time so he visits his granddad, who gives him a remedy. Also, who will win the spelling bee.

[Tressa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A boy gets a kick out of his burping condition, until it threatens to ruin his chance to win a spelling bee. His grandfather hands over his lucky frog so that the boy can rub it when he feels a burp coming on during the spelling bee. A cute story sure to make at least boys laugh at the character's faux pas.

[Jana · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was in a batch of books that was given to my classroom library. The book is somewhat popular with several of my 5th grade students. I like that it attracts some of my reluctant readers. It's a cute story and the pictures are kind of funny.

[Kate Hastings · Rating 4 out of 5]

RL 380. A boy must find a cure for burps before competing in a spelling bee. Told in comic book format.

[Helen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was really short and stupid! I don't even think my kids would like the bathroom humor. So I'm going to pass on purchasing for my elementary library.

[Laura Salas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stone Arch graphic novel. Cures his burping by concentrating on other stuff. Best of the Stone Arch books I've read so far, I think.

[Amya P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book is hilarious and humiliating because he burped alot and couldnt stop it and it took a frog hahahahah to stop him from burping !

[Ethan Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good book, although it's kind of dumb.