Review by Booklist Review
Ages 5^-7. Adding her own creative stamp to a verse that children will instantly recognize, "To market, to market, / to buy a fat PIG," Miranda makes market day an unforgettable experience--all in the name of what's for lunch. The lively rhyming text is closely linked to the pictures, with Stevens' illustrations capturing the comical goings-on in wildly funny fashion: a shopper wheeling a cart stuffed with a large pink pig; successive trips to the store for a hen, a goose, a trout, a lamb, and other animals; the harried shopper valiantly trying to control her animal visitors while hanging on to her purse and keeping her hat and glasses on her head; and the final clever (vegetarian) solution that pleases beast and human alike. The double-spread collages burst with activity and color. Stevens has used black-and-white photos (of the market, of the shopper's kitchen) as backgrounds to showcase her colorful cast, and the mismatched effect is at once crazy and clever, striking and odd. It may take some doing to unravel all the hectic activity, but children won't mind in the least. --Stephanie Zvirin.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this clever riff on the old nursery rhyme, "To market, to market, to buy a fat pig," a plump matron makes a series of increasingly calamitous purchases of animals at the supermarket. Hungry and cranky after the raucous menagerie turns her house topsy-turvy, the lady (who is dressed in a deliciously kitschy ensemble) wisely decides to make vegetable soup instead. Stevens (Tops & Bottoms) creates collages from mundane-looking b&w photographs of settings and objects by superimposing on them dynamic mixed media portraits of the heroine and her animal retinue. The skillfully wielded visual anarchy explodes off the page. As the catalyst and brunt of the mess, the would-be chef gets a full comic workout (in one illustration, the animals push her to the market as she slumps, dazed and utterly frazzled, in a grocery cart), but the audience also will sense the illustrator's genuine affection for her heroine's indomitable spirit. Miranda's (Night Songs) rhyming text (set in playful typography, with red boldface for emphasis) does an unobtrusive job of pushing the boundaries of the original rhymes, with verses like these: "To market, to market, for one stubborn goat. The duck flew the coop and the goat ate my coat!" But some may find the writer's repeated use of "Uh-oh!" to mark each new calamity cloying (perhaps because it seems an unlikely interjection from such a distinctive-looking heroine). Still, this is one market trip children will wish to take again and again. Ages 4-8. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3What begins with the traditional serene nursery rhyme turns into a slapstick excursion filled with mishap and mayhem. A "fat pig" is not enough for this ambitious shopper. The elderly woman makes return trips to the market for a hen, trout, lamb, cow, duck, and goat. While she is acquiring more, her earlier purchases are wreaking havoc. Patterned, staccato verses tell the zany tale, but it is Stevens's wonderfully wild illustrations that bring it to life. The conventional home's interior is pictured in flat gray charcoal tones. The woman and her animals are colorful, oversized figures that burst off the pages. The collage technique allows for the contrasting colors and styles that magnify the uncontained boisterous fun of this very imaginative book. Visual format, repetition, and rhyme make this title an ideal choice for sharing aloud. It could also be used as a springboard for writing projects as children start with a familiar rhyme and make it their own. All-in-all, a delightful, albeit raucous, romp.Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) Michael Dorris's adult novels Yellow Raft in Blue Water and Cloud Chamber chronicle the deceptions and betrayals that nearly destroy a family, generation after generation. Yellow Raft in Blue Water moves from the present generation of fifteen-year-old Rayona back through two generations of women on her maternal side, while Cloud Chamber opens in nineteenth-century Ireland and moves forward through five generations of Rayona's paternal family. Whereas these two books convey how suffocating and harmful relationships can be, The Window throws itself open to the strengths of familial bonds. From the moment eleven-year-old Rayona sits by the window waiting for the return of her frequently delinquent mother, this novel pulsates forward with an energy and wit that never falters. In lively contrast to Dorris's more somber historical novels for children, the seemingly cocky but vulnerable and emotionally needy Rayona narrates this short novel with a breezy, spunky voice. When her Indian mother does not return from her latest binge to declare their usual "National Holiday" (on which she and Rayona can eat breakfast for supper and practice being best friends), Rayona's philandering black father informs her that her mother has checked into a rehab center, but that he is unable to care for Rayona. Her foster placement with the relentlessly cheerful Potters (Rayona is amazed to discover that "there are actual people like this who aren't on a weekly sitcom") proves short-lived and disastrous; placement with the stolid Mrs. Jackson turns to unexpected fun for them both but is likewise cut short. Rayona senses that her father, in talking with her about his family (with whom she will live next) is "leaving something out, some detail, some secret within a secret, but I am so anxious to find out what happened next, to get to the 'me' part, that I let it go by." The Window is all the "me part," keeping the exuberant narrator squarely in the middle as she finds her place in the secrets of her family. Rayona soon learns that her grandmother (her father's mother) is white-a fact he tells Rayona when he is taking her to meet her grandmother for the first time. Rayona resolves not to miss another word for the rest of her life. Sitting in the window seat of the airplane, she understands that she will never again "be able to look out a small window and see [her] whole world from it." With the introduction of Rayona's great-grandmother, the ancient and proper Mamaw, her sensible and wise Aunt Edna, and her grandmother Marcella (a "vanilla Hostess cupcake" of a woman), Dorris's novel becomes yet more unguarded as these three women embrace their young relative with unconditional love. No scene feels more genuinely celebratory than when her aunt and grandmother travel west with Rayona to return her home. Having installed a device atop their car to provide cool air-a contrivance that re-quires the windows to be rolled up-the three must shout to be heard, causing a cacophony of "beg your pardons." When Grand-mother opens the window, thinking to be chastised but instead winning the approval of everyone as the cooler sails away, all three break into hilarity and song. Without glos-sing over the hurt and pain of parental abandonment, this novel of open win-dows is a joy, a "national holiday" to which we can return any day of the week. s.p.b. Picture Books Marc Brown Arthur's Computer Disaster; illus. by the author (Preschool, Younger) Arthur knows he's not supposed to be using his mother's computer, but the lure of Deep, Dark Sea, "the greatest game in the universe," is irresistible. Predictably, the computer breaks; luckily, it's easy to fix; reassuringly, Mom is not mad, just disappointed. She decrees that there will be no computer gaming for a week-at least for Arthur: "'I'll be right up,' called Mom. 'As soon as I blast these skeletons from the treasure chest.'" "Adapted by Marc Brown from a teleplay by Joe Fallon," this story of mild disaster followed by mild reproof will be a pleasant diversion for fans of the popular TV personality. r.s. Eve Bunting Ducky; illus. by David Wisniewski (Preschool) David Wisniewski's Caldecott-winning paper-cutting talents get a comedic workout here, illustrating Bunting's slightly sly text about a plastic duck who, along with thousands of fellow bathtub toys, is washed overboard when a storm hits the freighter ferrying them across the ocean (Bunting supplies a note about the factual event that inspired the story). The duck tells the story ("Our ship has disappeared. The sea is big, big, big. Oh, I am scared!"), including an unfortunate encounter with a shark ("It shakes its head and spits us out. I expect we are not too tasty, though we are guaranteed non-toxic") and the basic existential dilemma of a bathtub toy out of its element: "I wish we could swim and get away. But all we can do is float." The ocean's currents eventually bring the duck to shore alongside many of his compatriots, and he finally achieves his destiny, floating in the security of a bubblebath. This is an out-of-the way excursion for both author and illustrator, and if Wisniewski's pictures are sometimes too weighty for Bunting's buoyant text, they are certainly splashy enough. r.s. H Peter Collington A Small Miracle (Younger) The creator of On Christmas Eve (reviewed 11/90) revisits that significant night in another masterfully executed wordless picture book. The artist's trademark sequential frames make the experience of turning the pages like watching a movie; this time it's a gripping, matter-of-factly magical story of charity and selflessness rewarded. In the midst of a bustling, prosperous contemporary village, a desperate old woman loses every-thing when she sells her sole prized possession-her accordion-and then is robbed. On her way home, she encounters the same thief attempting (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A marketing trip from Miranda (Glad Monster, Sad Monster, p. 1309) that jiggity jigs off in time-honored nursery-rhyme fashion, but almost immediately derails into well-charted chaos. The foodstuffs--the fat pig, the red hen, the plump goose, the pea pods, peppers, garlic, and spice--are wholly reasonable in light of the author's mention of shopping at traditional Spanish mercados, which stock live animals and vegetables. Stevens transfers the action to a standard American supermarket and a standard American kitchen, bringing hilarity to scenes that combine acrylics, oil pastels, and colored pencil with photo and fabric collage elements. The result is increasing frazzlement for the shopper, an older woman wearing spectacles, hat, and purple pumps (one of which is consumed by her groceries). It's back to market one last time for ingredients for the hot vegetable soup she prepares for the whole bunch. True, her kitchen's trashed and she probably won't find a welcome mat at her supermarket hereafter, but all's well that ends well--at least while the soup's on. (Picture book. 4-8)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
