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Twice selected for inclusion in the CALIFORNIA COLLECTION by California Readers!

Recommended on PBS’s “STORYTIME” !

KIRKUS: “This down-home tale of the oddball antics of a granny is a perfect fit for Booth’s distinctive illustrations. Ma’s hard at work, so she keeps sending one of the kids off to fetch Grandma. But Grandma is always up to something eccentric, soaking her foot in the stew pot on the stove, painting the kids’ coats bright colors, sliding down the haystack with her many animal pals. She’s too busy to help, until Ma asks that she play her banjo. That Grandma will do, and the evening comes to a close with a banjo-picking, sing-along hoedown. Wayland (To Rabbittown, 1989) kindly includes music and words to the tune, so readers can sing, too. Booth tones his people down a notch, though Ma’s hitched-up elbows and Grandma’s clodhopper shoes convey character with a minimum of detail…Grandma’s menagerie includes porcupines, ducks, cats, dogs, and raccoons, there’s ample opportunity for goofy cartooning…A brand new hill tale with so much pep readers will swear it’s been handed down for generations.  Read it out loud.”

*SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: “The story’s lively mountain twang is well paired with wild cartoon illustrations that highlight its sassy tone. Finish read-aloud with a sing-along (music and new lyrics provided). It will be a silly good time for all.” *Starred review

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: “From its…goony title-page rendering of the Knopf borzoi to its droll locutions (‘Where in the hickory stick is Grandma?’), this volume establishes a rollicking hootenanny feel…fans of the New Yorker artist will instantly recognize a certain pointy-eared, barrel-chested dog.”

LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW (Michael Cart): “Los Angeles author April Halprin Wayland has crafted a hilarious story full of memorable characters and, thanks to her training as a poet, even more memorable turns of idiomatic phrase (“Noon was sizzling like an egg in a cast-iron pan”). Meanwhile, the great…cartoonist George Booth has created wackily apposite pictures filled with eccentric…characters…caught in laugh-out-loud situations…”

HORN BOOK: “An “imaginative romp, with…evocative, homespun language and tall-tale feel…”

SING OUT! MAGAZINE: “What a charming picture and story book from…April Halprin Wayland, a Los Angeles children’s writer, country fiddler and founder of the Santa Monica Traditional Folk Music Club and New Yorker cartoonist George Booth!”


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