The shrunken head

K-Gr 2-"Once upon a time," begins this story within a story, as Grandpa tries to take young Barney's mind off his itchy chicken pox. He tells of his adventures when he and his pal Doc Storkmeyer were exploring the jungle on bicycles. They encountered the poison-arrow-throwing, drum-beating Pooches, whose tribal queen designated Grandpa to be her king. When he rejected her romantic offer, she ordered her subjects to "use the shrink juice." Even though poor Doc suffered a head-shrinking, Grandpa cleverly engineered the duo's escape and restored his friend's head to normal size. This brush with terror is really just a rollicking tall tale; the hilarious cartoon drawings of the dogs dancing around their cauldron of vile green stuff and the boxes with silly dialogue throughout will make children laugh and eagerly await a fourth installment.-Gloria Koster, West School, New Canaan, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(Primary) The third in this easy-reader series (The Octopus, rev. 1/05; A Snout for Chocolate, rev. 1/06), The Shrunken Head opens with Grandpa and Grandma Spanielson still caring for their grandpup, Barney, sick with the chicken pox. So that Barney won't think of the awful itching, Grandpa tells another outlandish story, this time about the day Queen Peekatmyknees trapped Grandpa and Dr. Storkmeyer in the jungle. As in previous entries, Cazet signals the narrative switch from sickbed to short story with a distinct stylistic change in illustrations and an internal title page. Still using conversational balloons for clever yet nonessential banter among characters, he continues to introduce increasingly sophisticated reading demands. With Barney apparently on the road to recovery, series fans may wish for a relapse. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.