Busy Day for a Good Grandmother

Urgently, Scrimshaw telephones his mother for help: Wanda's left him with Sweeney, who's teething, and only some of his grandmother's cock-a-hoop honey cake will mollify him. Loading cake, meatballs, and some heavy, nutritious muffins into her backpack, Mrs. Oberon leaves her seven hungry cats and hops onto her trailbike. Her journey involves many kinds of transport- -rafting through rapids and alligators (diverted with meatballs); a plane menaced by ``ice vultures'' (the muffins weigh them down); etc. Meanwhile, Scrimshaw vainly tries to amuse Sweeney with his electic guitar, and is so exhausted by the time his mother quells the tyke that his next move is for the TV. No way. Pleasant but firm, Mrs. Oberon teaches her son to bake his own cake, then goes home to feed her cats. Lilting with wordplay, Mahy's tall tale is so good-humored that even a feckless father would be disarmed. Chamberlain's airy cartoons are equally cheery, with plenty of comic dividends--the alligators ``trying to free their fangs'' from the meatballs; huge, couch-potato Scrimshaw, beaming with pride over his first cake. A delight. (Picture book. 5-8) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Mrs. Oberon's son, Scrimshaw, frantic to soothe his teething baby, phones for a slice of his mother's cock-a-hoop honey cake, and Mrs. Oberon rushes off to the rescue on her trail bike. In a sprightly alliterative text that often approaches the linguistic pitch of a tongue twister, we follow the good grandmother as she overcomes a series of perilous obstacles, a la Indiana Jones. "Rafting in and out of the ragged rocks of the Riff-Raff Rapids," she foils the alligators of Swagwallow Swamp by feeding them her "rather sticky" butcher-bean-and-meat balls (thus gluing their teeth together). Scrimshaw's attempts to calm the baby by serenading him with the "teething blues" provide a hilarious counterpoint to his mother's trek. Chamberlain's bright, loose watercolors perfectly suit the story's madcap humor and breathless pace, portraying the feisty grandma and her barrel-bellied son with warmth and wit. Flawed only by an occasional indulgence of Mahy's verbosity, Mrs. Oberon's wild ride is a sunny celebration of language, eccentricity and family spirit. Ages 5-8.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.