My Nasty Backpack

by Allia Zobel Nolan

As a boy tries to find that "something special" surprise for his mother at the bottom of his school backpack, he first must wade through an ants-covered sandwich, smelly gym sock, and other yucky stuff to find it. Original.

Genres: Picture Books

16 pages, Hardcover

First published June 6, 2006

About the author

Allia Zobel Nolan is an internationally published, award-winning author specializing in children’s trade and religious books and adult humorous books. She has written over 150 titles, and has over 2 ½ million books in print. For the past nine years, Ms. Zobel Nolan worked for Reader’s Digest Children’s Books as a Senior Editor. She became a free-agent as of April 07, and is now at work on several religious children’s books.

Ms. Zobel Nolan has been published by Workman, Andrews & McMeel, Reader’s Digest Children’s Publishing, Barnes & Noble, Adams Media, Broadman & Holman, Zondervan, Cook, Scholastic (Veggie Tales), Concordia, Kregel, Standard Publishing, and Tommy Nelson. She has won several book awards, among them, the 2005 Mom’s Choice Award for the Most Outstanding Children’s Book for Preschoolers, an iParenting Award for Greatest Product of 2005, and the 2007 Teacher’s Choice Award.

Ms. Zobel Nolan has appeared on numerous TV shows, including Good Day New York, CNN, the Bertice Berry Show, Fox 5 "Pet Department," CBS News, Saturday Morning Live, The Channel 2 Six O’clock News; Hard Copy, the Fairfield Exchange, Westchester Channel 12, Channel 8 News New Haven, Education Notebook, and other nationally-syndicated television shows, in addition to interviews on radio, and extensive media coverage in local and national press.

Ms. Zobel Nolan is a member of the Cat Writer’s Association and Connecticut Press Club. She lives in Connecticut, with her husband, Desmond, and their three cats, Angela, Sinead, and McDuff.

She loves writing about God, cats, and for children.

- excerpted from her website

Reviews

[Rachel]

We got this book out of the bargain section at Borders. I figured it was disposable entertainment for our cross-country flight. Well, it survived the trip and is a current favorite for our 3 year old daughter! She has the whole book memorized and thinks it is hilarous! She loves all the nasty bugs and things. She requests it over and over again.

[Amy Phelps]

do not read if you have a weak stomach.

[Angela]

Great for targeting multisyllabic words. The design is also very interactive so kids will enjoy this book.

I paired this with a craft activity during which we made backpacks out of paper bags and put different things in them for different power rangers since that's what my client is into. The craft activity targeted subject pronouns. (He gets the blue power ranger gloves. She gets the pink power ranger boots.)