It's Not My Fault!

by Jory John, Jared Chapman (Illustrator)

Overview

The New York Times bestselling author of The Bad Seed and The Good Egg takes a lighthearted approach to how to respond to the all-too-common claim "It's not my fault!"

Emotional literacy is embedded in this funny cautionary tale:

Why is your homework so messy?
It's not my fault! I blame my pen.
Why can't I read these test answers?
I blame my pen.
Why is your assignment so late?
Um...I blame my pen?

A boy steadfastly refuses to take responsibility for any of his mistakes. He just blames everything on his pen, his backpack, his comb, his pillow—whatever happens to be at hand. For a while, this approach works at home and at school. He's positively convinced he has it all figured out until...all the inanimate objects rise up and revolt. What can he do when a talking pen and talking backpack decide to rebel?

The #1 New York Times bestselling picture-book author Jory John encourages kids to accept responsibility while keeping the laughs coming in this fun-filled tale.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781984830609
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	06/09/2020
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	249,176
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD540L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

JORY JOHN is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of many books for both children and adults. He is the author of Penguin Problems and Giraffe Problems (both illustrated by Lane Smith), The Bad Seed and The Good Egg (both illustrated by Pete Oswald), and Quit Calling Me a Monster! and I Will Chomp You! (both illustrated by Bob Shea), among many other books. Jory is a two-time E. B. White Read Aloud Honor recipient and has won numerous state book awards for his writing. He lives in Oregon. You can find him at joryjohn.com and follow him on Twitter at @IamJoryJohn.

JARED CHAPMAN was born in Louisiana; grew up in Texas; went to college in Georgia; lived in Austin, Texas; and now lives with his family in the piney woods of northeast Texas. He is best known as the author-illustrator of the popular books Vegetables in Underwear and Fruits in Suits.

Editorial Reviews

04/20/2020

John (Giraffe Problems) and Chapman’s (Vegetables in Underwear) redheaded protagonist is a pro at passing the buck: it’s his pen’s fault that his homework is messy and late, and the moon’s fault that he’s up past his bedtime. But his fall guys are not as inanimate as he assumes (the brightly colored cartooned line drawings show them fuming with each falsehood), and late one night the pen holds an intervention, unleashing a torrent of hard truths and a threat to revoke affection that should make for bravura reading aloud. “Blaming everything but yourself, never taking responsibility for your actions, and pointing a guilty, quaking finger whenever you’ve done anything wrong is a sham,” the pen declares. What’s more, “blaming the moon for when you stay up too late makes literally NO SENSE AT ALL.” (“YEAH!” an angry moon echoes from the sky.) And it works: the boy announces at school the next day that he accepts responsibility for his actions—well, at least partially. There’s something to be said for the story’s unalloyed righteous indignation, its conviction showing that the blame game is never just fun and games. Ages 3–7. Author’s agent: Kirsten Hall, Catbird Productions. Illustrator’s agent: Rebecca Sherman, Writers House. (June)

Publishers Weekly

A creative way to start a discussion on taking responsibility for one's actions and learning why one shouldn't point fingers unfairly.” —Booklist

“As funny as it is acute, and hopefully pre- and primary graders will squirm as well as giggle when the message hits home.” —The Bulletin

“There’s something to be said for the story’s unalloyed righteous indignation, its conviction showing that the blame game is never just fun and games.” —Publishers Weekly

“The book’s presentation and metatext is dripping with [cleverness].” —School Library Journal

"The humor in both art and text makes this an appealing picture book that might even cause some self-reflection and growth in its readers." —The Horn Book 

From the Publisher

05/01/2020

Gr 1–3—A young boy is so incapable of accepting responsibility for his own mistakes that he blames everyone—and everything—around him. When the inanimate objects in his life get fed up with being scapegoats, they stage a revolt, rising up in the middle of the night to tell the boy why his blame-shifting actions are wrong. Human characters have a comics aesthetic to them, while the inanimate objects all have expressive faces. An angry pair of shoes, a furious backpack, and an irate bar of soap show their fury by grimacing and baring teeth at the irresponsible main character. The book employs what is now a John trademark: a character delivers a page-long monologue in which the moral of the story is delivered. While the narrative delivery lacks cleverness, the book's presentation and metatext is dripping with it. The jacket flap is narrated by the buck-passing main character. The dedication features the illustrator blaming the author and the author claiming, naturally, that it's not his fault. VERDICT Recommended for collections in which other Jory books such as Penguin Problems or Giraffe Problems are popular.—Chance Lee Joyner, Haverhill Public Library, MA

School Library Journal

2020-02-09
Inanimate objects defend themselves against misassigned blame.

An aggrieved teacher asks her student, “Why is your homework so messy?…Why can’t I read these test answers?…Why is your assignment so late?” The red-haired, gap-toothed boy confidently blames his pen, which growls in frustration in four increasingly large graphic-novel–style panels. The nameless white boy blames his shoes for mud tracked into the house, his backpack for his missing homework, and the moon for his late bedtime. “Welp. I think I’ve figured it all out. You just blame other stuff!” boasts this unlikable protagonist. But in a Scrooge-ian maybe-dream, his angry pen launches into a lengthy diatribe about how “never taking responsibility for your actions…is a sham.” The lecture continues for multiple pages, ending with the pen’s dubious assertion that the boy is “a mostly good kid with mostly good intentions” (though the text provides no evidence to back up this claim). The next day the boy seems to turn over a new leaf, standing on a table and yelling to his multiracial classmates that he no longer blames his possessions for his mistakes, but when put to the test, he goes back to his old habits. What could be an interesting commentary on white male entitlement ultimately fails to deliver, but Chapman’s cartoons of growling, angrily grimacing anthropomorphic objects are amusing.

An ineffective mixture of moralistic and didactic. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews