Review by Booklist Review
Ages 4-8. Reminiscent of McGovern's Too Much Noise (1967), Donaldson's picture book tells the story of an old lady who, on the advice of a wise old man, brings animal after animal indoors to live with her. Her house becomes "tiny," "crampy," "teeny," and "weeny"--until the man advises her to turn all the animals out. The old lady does so and finds her house roomy indeed. "And now she's full of frolics and fiddle-dee-dees, it isn't a squash and it isn't a squeeze." Though it doesn't quite scan, the rhyming text will work well for reading aloud. Scheffler's watercolors, similar in style to the artwork of Jack Kent, have a slapstick humor bound to appeal to young children, who will happily join in the "squash and squeeze" refrain. ~--Janice Del Negro
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-- In this traditional tale, adapted and retold in verse, a little old woman complains to a wise old man that, ``My house is a squash and a squeeze,'' even though she is the sole resident. The thoughtful man tells her to take in, in turn, her hen, goat, pig, and finally her cow. Of course the house seems gigantic when the temporary boarders are put out. Clever caricatures of characters accentuate the humorous situation. Just a curl of a lip or the ideal placement of the dot in the white eyeball make them whimsical, pensive, dismayed, serene, or horrified. Pen-and-ink outlined with bright watercolor washes are set against a white background. It seems that light is shining through the pages. Best of all is the language; the refrain reverberates even after the story is over. Margot Zemach's It Could Always Be Worse (Farrar, 1990) and Eleanor Chroman's It Could Be Worse (Childrens, 1972; o.p.) are familiar versions of the story. Donaldson's has fewer details, but its rollicking verse makes it a charming story hour addition.-- Nancy Seiner, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (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
An old woman complains that her house is too small -- it's 'a squash and a squeeze' -- so the wise old man advises her to take in all her animals, one at a time. When he tells her to take them all out again, her little house feels spacious. The rhyming text is appealingly illustrated with pleasant, bold pictures of farm animals wreaking rather mild havoc in the old lady's house. However, no attribution is given to the book's derivation from an old Yiddish folktale. From HORN BOOK 1993, (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
You may not think you need yet another version of the tale about someone realizing that her house is actually big enough to accommodate a whole slew of animals, after crowding them in--one by one--on the advice of a wise man (he looks as much like a vicar as a rabbi here). But this variant has two things to recommend it: Donaldson's merrily lilting text (``The little old lady cried, `Stop, I implore!/It was cramp-y for three and it's teeny for four./Even the pig in the cupboard agrees/my house is a squash and a squeeze' ''); and Scheffler's vigorously limned cartoon-style illustrations, explicating and elaborating the ludicrous events line by line. Where funds permit, a worthy addition. (Picture book. 3-8)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
