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Crabby Cratchitt [Hardcover]

Gregory Maguire (Author), Andrew Glass (Illustrator)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)


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Book Description

5 and upK and up
Crabby Cratchitt has a farm . . . and a hen that won’t stop clucking! Crabby schemes and plots and tries everything she can to put an end to the eternal clucking, but nothing works. The noisy hen won’t leave old Crabby alone. But when the hen falls silent at last, could it be that the farm is a little too quiet for Crabby, after all? A familiar rhythm, clever rhymes, and hilariously expressive illustrations deliver a surprise ending to this rollicking, laugh-out-loud story about a unique friendship.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Erratic improvisations on "Old Macdonald Had a Farm" frustrate attempts to sing along with this so-so story of a female farmer and her chicken. Crabby Cratchitt has a hen ("E-I-E-I-oh"). Every time the gray-haired farmer tries to nap, she wakes to "a cluck cluck here/ and a cluck cluck there./ Too much clucking everywhere." Crabby Cratchitt grabs a hatchet and chases the garrulous bird all over the farm, but she has a change of heart when a fox nearly finishes the job. Glass's (Monster Manners) caricatures of the barnyard antics recall Paul Brett Johnson's folktale illustrations. Bony, pot-bellied Crabby wears an incongruous outfit of brown skirt and yellow rain boots, and the scenery includes a ramshackle pickup truck, chicken wire and a profusion of straw. Maguire (Five Alien Elves) explains that the maddening "here a cluck,/ there a cluck,/ sounded like a record stuck." Yet his couplets skip like a stuck record, too, from "Crabby had a clever plan./ She'd cook that hen in a frying pan!" to "Crabby Cratchitt, at it still./ That hen was pretty hard to kill." These singsong stanzas require repetitive images of the scowling Crabby and her victorious hen, and this slapstick combination quickly gets stale. Ages 4-8. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 2-"Crabby Cratchitt had a farm,/E-I-E-I-oh./And on that farm she had a hen,/E-I-E-I-oh," begins Maguire's silly twist on the familiar song. "Here a cluck,/there a cluck,/sounded like a record stuck." The noisy little hen foils every plot the elderly woman hatches to get rid of her, from a net trap to a hatchet, but when a fox grabs the annoying chicken, Crabby comes to the rescue. The rhyming text successfully moves the plot along, with only an occasional falter or awkward phrasing. The lengthy conclusion smacks of melodrama: "'Cluck?' she said again. 'Please cluck?'/The hen held still./The hen looked ill." Glass's watercolor, pencil, and oil crayon illustrations create a lively, rumpled backdrop for the expressively comic characters. A lightweight romp that children will flock to.
Lee Bock, Glenbrook Elementary School, Pulaski, WI
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  • Hardcover: 32 pages
  • Publisher: Clarion Books (August 21, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0395604850
  • ISBN-13: 978-0395604854
  • Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 7.6 x 0.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,948,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gregory Maguire received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Tufts University, and his B.A. from the State University of New York at Albany. He was a professor and co-director at the Simmons College Center for the Study of Children's Literature from 1979-1985. In 1987 he co-founded Children's Literature New England. He still serves as co-director of CLNE, although that organization has announced its intention to close after its 2006 institute.
The bestselling author of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, Mirror Mirror, and the Wicked Years, a series that includes Wicked, Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among Men. Wicked, now a beloved classic, is the basis for the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name. Maguire has lectured on art, literature, and culture both at home and abroad.
He has three adopted children and is married to painter Andy Newman. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

 

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A SMILE PROVOKING RHYMING TALE, September 30, 2000
This review is from: Crabby Cratchitt (Hardcover)
Farmer Crabby Cratchitt isn't as intimidating as she sounds - you might be a little grumpy too if you couldn't sleep because your hen was clucking all the time.

The easy rhythm of E-I-E-I-0 and hilarious illustrations follow everything Crabby does in order to keep her hen from clucking constantly, even when she's confronted by dozens of new eggs and the prospect of millions of cheeps added to the clucking.

When a sly fox intrudes, Crabby must make some quick decisions. Youngsters will enjoy the familiar sounds, lilting rhymes, and the funny fixes Crabby finds herself in.

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Crabby Cratchitt
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