Cool Daddy Rat

by Kristyn Crow, Kristyn Crow

Every night, Cool Daddy Rat takes his bass case and goes out to play jazz and scat around the city. But one night he hears something strange: Peeky squeaky who dat? It's his son, Ace, hiding in the bass case! After a reassuring call to Mama, the pair go all over the city together, filling the streets with his sweet beat. And when Ace can't contain himself any longer, Cool Daddy Rat finds out he's not the only fantastic scatter in the family. This cool read-aloud, full of energy from the jazzy text and animated illustrations, will have kids snapping, tapping and scatting along. 

Genres: Picture Books, Music, Childrens, Fiction, Jazz, Animals, Storytime

32 pages, Hardcover

First published March 27, 2008

About the author

Kristyn Crow is the author of four children's picture books: COOL DADDY RAT (Putnam), BEDTIME AT THE SWAMP (HarperCollins, THE MIDDLE CHILD BLUES (Putnam, coming soon) and SKELETON CAT (Scholastic, coming soon). COOL DADDY RAT received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal. She is the mother of seven children, some with special needs, and Kristyn has written hundreds of blog articles on topics like autism, juvenile diabetes, and parenting. Some of these articles have been reprinted by national foundations. Kristyn loves to hear from parents, teachers, kids, and readers. Visit her website by clicking HERE, or visit her writing blog by clicking HERE.

Reviews

[Bill Prosser]

Fun, jazzy, scat read aloud! The kids are loving it in the library!

[Jenny]

Daddy rat goes all over town, playing jazz and scatting. One night his son, Ace, sneaks into his bass case. Ace gets to see his cool daddy perform...and even gets to join him in scatting.

We were lucky enough to have author Kristyn Crow visit our school a couple of months back so I've enjoyed reading her books. She was such an engaging visitor! Her stories are fun and my students still talked about her writing advice 3 months later.

[Alexis]

If you love fun picture books this is a great one! Kristyn Crow has a website and a blog YOu can find out updates on any books that she has written.

[Denise]

Decent picture books concerning music, genres, instruments etc. are hard to come by and this one does a fine job of being entertaining and informative. I would use this with preschool-3 grade.

[Agathafrye]

I realized I don't really like scatting/jazztalk after reading this book. The pictures were great, though.

[Jessica]

Love the rhythm of this book. Great read aloud - themes of music, and jazz.

[Roseann]

This is a jazz-baby's best friend....read it out loud with a rat-a-tat-scat!!!!

[Jennifer]

The author used too many nonsense words in an attempt to develop a jazzy rhythm. Unfortunately, they were overused and distracted from the actual story line enough that it was hard to tell exactly what was happening. The pictures didn't help. I won't be using this one for story time.

[Cheryl]

The scatting rhythms are great. The pictures are *ugly* imo. The storyline doesn't quite make sense as too much is accomplished in one day, when everyone knows jazz belongs to the night.

[Lynn Davidson]

This is a fun story to read aloud. Cool Daddy Rat is a jazz player, and one night his son, Ace, sneaks to a gig in his dad’s bass case. Cool Daddy Rat learns his son has a musical talent he didn’t know about. Fun (cool) illustrations.

[Virginia]

I really enjoyed this book and thinking about using it in my "Illustrated Adventure" summer camp on our music theme day. I did feel however that it like a conflict, some tension, to drive the story forward. But, that said, the text was super fun to read and the illustrations perfectly matched!

[Debbie Cranberryfries]

The Cranberryfries family LOVED this book! When I read this to my kids for the first time (they were 2, 3, 6) and my 2y/o danced and bounced to the words, my 3 y/o loved looking for things in the pictures and my 6 year old wanted to try to read it again by herself.

This is such a fabulous book! It was fun, as the reader, to get really animated about the words and try to read them with a lot of inflection and pizazz. On amazon you can check out the first page in the book and see what I mean. The rhythm of the book is so great not only for the kids but for the adults too!

Cool Daddy Rat has gotten a lot of awards including "Blue Ribbon Book" for 2008 by the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books.

I've blogged the rest of my review here:
http://cranberryfries.blogspot.com/20...

[Jennifer]

Cool Daddy Rat follows Daddy Rat and his stowaway son Ace through a night of bass-playing, scat-filled jazz gigs. Preschool kids will love all the silly-sounding scat words although most won't recognize the New York locations that form the background scenery and add extra flavor to the story. The illustrations are done in a cartoon style and colored with what look like watercolors to me (Sadly I do not have the book in front of me to check for an illustration note). I'd be interested to see how a group of older kids would react to this - maybe as an intro to a lesson on jazz? They might enjoy it for more than just the silly sounds.

Used for music themed storytimes 3/3/09 and 3/5/09.

[Susan]

0-7. Cute story of a scat rat who goes off to play jazz for the night in NYC only to discover his son has stowed away in his bass case. Instead of getting mad, the dad and son experience the night of music together. At the end of the nice, to his surprise, dad learns that son can scat too. Jumpy scat rhymes, and colorful sketchy illustrations done "with a No 2 pencil, watercolor, and a Mac".

[Shelli]

Since I do not have a cool deep jazzy voice I wish this book had come with an audio CD that provided that, and some sweet jazz tunes mixed throughout. - That would have made the book perfect! I love picture books that introduce children to varieties of music that they may otherwise not hear in this day of crappy over played "singles" on the radio.

[Trent Tuttle]

The standard by which I personally judge picture books.

There's a cohesive quality here...words, pace, illustration...that deserves so much credit.

Each time I read it out loud, I'm compelled to get more animated. It demands I slip into a jazzy, snazzy groove and has never failed to reward me with an audience that's just as caught-up.

[Sheri]

Love the skat in this book and the jazzy references. I spent time reading this myself and then to five different children. We liked the rhyme but lost the story reading all the funny jazz words. But is a fun read for children and their parents.

[Molly]

I love books that show jazz artists. This is a great one where a young rat goes with his dad to music events. I love the rythm of the book and for once I don't mind that they are rats which are normally just gross in my opinion.

[Leigh]

Mock Caldecott. Jazz story about a rat dad and his son, they play jazz all over NY. Cool sounds to act out, this would be probably be really entertaining as a CD. Not my cup of tea, but in the right hands, this book could be a hit at storytimes.

[Brianna]

I bought this book at a writer's conference and met the author. My kids love this book! I bought it for my 5 year old boy and when we read it we find his older sisters, ages 8 & 11, migrating in to listen. It's very fun to read. We have it down to Mommy's style and Daddy's style. Thanks Kristyn.

[Alice]

I like the rhythm of this book. It has to be read 'right' or it doesn't work. I had a teenager read it with no enthusiasm and no inflection, and then I read it with inflection and enthusiasm and it sounded fun! This author did a live read at our library today and she was great.

[Relyn]

Curriculum Connection
This is a terrific book for teaching onomatopoeia and the rhythm you can make with good word choice. It's also a super-fun introduction to jazz. You would definitely need to play Ella Fitzgerald singing scat after this book.

[The Brothers]

Scat-a-rat! This is an awesome little book about a jazzy bass-playing daddy rat. He heads out on the town to play and his little kid hides out in his bass case. I love the rhyming skit-scat of the story.

The illustrations are really cool too. Fun to see NYC in a jazzy, ratty way!

[Amy Brown]

Cool daddy rat goes out for a gig and Lucky Ace tags along hiding in the bass case. This is a good book to use to introduce kids to jazz. I liked it but it's not my favorite musical book.

[Rita]

Fun music book for storytime.

[Tricia]

lots of doo wop and scatty skit. not sure if i can pull it off but in the hands of a trained professional, it would be great.

[Christy]

Collin loved this book. I didn't think he would like it, but he is now a huge fan of scat!!!!!!

[kelly]

I love this skatty jazz book! The writing is perfect.

[Roxanne Hsu Feldman]

Everything is fine with this one: good beat, fun words, a little bit of a "storyline" where Ace shows off his talent to his cool daddy rat. The illustrations fit the mood well.

[Kristen]

I love the words of this book, but must be jazz-impaired because I can't scan it right to read it smoothly aloud!