Squash It! - Hardcover

Eric A. Kimmel, Professor of Education at Portland State University, lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, Doris. He has retold, adapted, or written a number of stories from around the world. The Following titles number among his most humorous books: "The Old Woman and Her Pig", "Anansi Goes Fishing", "Nanny Goat and the Seven Little Kids", and "Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock".

Kindergarten-Grade 4. When a head louse bites a king, the insect is proclaimed to have royal blood, and the monarch commands that it should be fed and protected. When the creature dies, a guitar is fashioned from its carcass, and the king, who loves a riddle, proposes a contest. The person who can correctly identify the guitar's material may marry the princess. A poor peasant thinks perhaps this will be a way to make his fortune. On his way to the king, he accumulates three insects: a grasshopper, a beetle, and a flea, all of whom aid him in his quest to provide the correct answer. Since the peasant is already married, he is rewarded with a mule loaded with riches. The illustrations for this broad comedy are bold and crude. Rayevsky's palette is intense, saturated, flat, and in mostly primary colors. The cartoonlike characters are outlined with thick black line. Kimmel attributes this story to one found in Ruth Sawyer's Picture Tales from Spain (Lippincott, 1936; o.p.), which features a flea instead of a louse. Though Kimmel has tightened it considerably, the text is still long. In the process, some charming elements have been eliminated. For telling to school children who endure regular head checks, librarians with the Sawyer version will do well to stick with the original and change the flea to a louse.?Kate McClelland, Perrot Memorial Library, Greenwich, CT
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