From Publishers Weekly
The rollicking rhythms and kid-pleasing repetition of Downey's (Sing, Henrietta! Sing!) rhyming verse recommend this perky volume for a lighthearted read-aloud. In a tumbledown barn, all the animals sleep peacefully, except a tiny flea, who coughs, sniffles and utters a plaintive plea to his snoring pals, "Does eddybody hab a tissue for be?" Finally, he issues an enormous sneeze that manages to rouse the menagerie: "It scared the rat,/ Who cried 'Boohoo!'/ And woke the cat,/ Who hissed 'Mairoo!'/ It baffled the bat,/ Whose eyes turned blue,/ And confused the cow,/ Who muttered 'Moo Moo!' " After the mouse (whom "the flea used for a house") produces a tissue, all settle back to sleep, save the hog ("No one heard his garbled wheeze,/ 'I think I'b godda sdeeze'"). Debut illustrator Firehammer's acrylic art shows the slumbering cast in humorous poses: on various spreads, the frog sleeps atop a dog who is curled up on the back of the hog, the bat hangs upside-down from the cow's tail and the owl stands on one leg as it dozes on a windowsill. Even better, their positions change from one spread to the next. Preschoolers will eagerly point out each animal with the repeat mentions of the barn's residents. Ages 3-6. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
PreSchool-The cover, showing a flea on a mouse on a cat on a dog on a pig on a cow, with other creatures jumping, perching, and flying about, affords a preliminary hint of the simple story within. All of the animals are asleep in the barn. The flea coughs, but nobody hears him. He asks for a tissue, and is still unheard. When he sneezes loudly, everyone abruptly awakens, a tissue is found, and they all settle down-until the hog feels a sneeze coming on. The rhymed text is forced, so that while other animals are called by their familiar names, the hen is "a feathered fowl" to rhyme with "owl." When the menagerie begins to hoot, crow, bark, etc., the hog screams "'Eeeeeeww!'/And reminded the frog/Of his old nephew," a line both puzzling in context and unnecessary. The softly colored, warmly textured acrylic illustrations are lively and funny. However, the text suffers from an overbalance of build-up leading to an understated ending, which seems anticlimactic after the long, tedious repetitions of the catalog of animals. For a book about an explosive sneeze with comical consequences that's easier to read aloud, try Ruth Brown's The Big Sneeze (Lothrop, 1985). It's economical, direct text emphasizes the humor rather than overburdening it with words.
Marian Drabkin, Richmond Public Library, CA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
