From Publishers Weekly
Scieszka and Smith (
Math Curse) unpack a bin of old toys and comics for this characteristically oddball entry. Their title page, which depicts a pair of scissors beside a sheet of Western Heroes paper dolls and an undersea comic book, reveals the origins of Cowboy and Octopus—both are paper cutouts that pose the same way throughout this episodic volume. Blond, cinematic Cowboy wears pressed jeans tucked into fancy boots and a fringed paisley shirt suitable for the rodeo. Sky-blue Octopus, with a tangle of tentacles, is shaded with pre-digital lavender dots. After cooperating to ride a seesaw, they shake hands, and shake hands, and shake hands a total of eight times, cementing their friendship. Octopus wears a doily and tiara for a Halloween costume, proclaiming himself the tooth fairy (Now that's scary, Cowboy quips) and attempts to tell Cowboy a knock-knock joke (Ain't nobody there! the dude protests). At Chow Time, Cowboy cooks Beans and Bacon, Bacon and Beans, and just plain Beans... with a little bit of bacon for Octopus; the cephalopod, who likes neither, licks one bean because Cowboy has worked so hard just for him. Greeting-card sentiments about friendship, punctuated by classic cowboy-isms dot the text. Those who love Scieszka and Smith's absurd humor will get the joke, but this is a lesser entry in the pair's pantheon. All ages.
(Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Grade 1–5—Picture-book readers meet an unlikely pair of friends here: a refined octopus and a cowboy who is a little rough around the edges. The two are actually paper cutouts: the title page reveals that Cowboy has been snipped from a
Western Heroes paper-doll book and Octopus from a comic strip. Seven hilarious short stories are presented, beginning with the origin of the friendship, in which Cowboy is confused about a teeter-totter that doesn't seem to work until Octopus "repairs" it by sitting on the opposite end, and concluding with the pair gazing into the sunset of a picture postcard. All of the vignettes are silly and perfectly absurd; Scieszka captures a childlike dialogic cadence and ends the pieces with the sudden, agreeable solutions to problems that kids often come up with. Incorporating mid-20th-century illustrations, graphic art, newspaper clippings, and toys, the collage and mixed-media artwork perfectly matches the wacky text. The colors are slightly muted and the paper appears to have yellowed with age. The delightful paper protagonists never change poses, though Smith occasionally dresses them in zany paper hats and silly costumes, and their static nature adds to the humor. Share this title with devotees of Scieszka's and Smith's other collaborations and with fans of Mini Grey's
Traction Man Is Here! (Knopf, 2005). Cowboy and Octopus prove that we all get by with a little help from our friends.—
Shawn Brommer, South Central Library System, Madison, WI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
