Meanwhile, Smith has the best of both worlds: his stylish drawings, sleek typography, and kid-friendly humor combine old media and new. "I'll charge it up when I'm done!" he promises, at which the mouse squeaks, "It's a book, jackass." This smart-aleck retort, arguably justified because the donkey is a jackass in any sense of the word, urges readers to side with the scholarly gorilla. The donkey tests the gorilla's patience: "Can it text? Tweet? Wi-Fi?" (When he asks, "Where's your mouse?" a real one pops from beneath the gorilla's porkpie hat.) After the gorilla hands over Treasure Island, the donkey gripes, "Too many letters," and converts the scene to emoticons before getting hooked on the story. "It's a book," the ape answers, in a stately orange serif font. Lane Smith is the author-illustrator of Grandpa Green and the illustrator of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, both Caldecott Honor winners. "What do you have there?" asks the techie, whose words are printed in ice blue, sans serif letters suggestive of a chat room. The donkey fiddles with a laptop while the gorilla holds a novel. E-literacy in his irreverent style, casting a donkey in the role of digital junkie and a gorilla as a literary type.
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