Customer Reviews

Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

The illustrations are drop-dead gorgeous but the story really steals the show. My husband and I are always quoting from this one--"and then I'm gonna DRINK SOME BUTTERMILK!" I love the dialect and the wonderful similies ("like an elevator up a greasy groove"). Can't wait to have kids so I can read it to them.

Looking for a smart, funny, verbal frenzy to delight school-age audiences? This one is a MUST DO! Reading it with carte blanche playfulness a la "Southrin' Stah-yle" you will have as much FUN reading this one aloud as any of your listeners. Don't forget to glance up now and then to see all the twinkling eyes. I read this two years ago and maybe stunned the 1st graders into silence with the roaring of the bear but the 3rd grade today quickly piped in the chorus of "...EAT...YOU... UP!!" (heavy emphasis on the "puh!") Dare I say more fun than sharing the stories of Brer' Rabbit? Same vein, but updated/smarter/slicker with Kesey's savvy vocabulary. (4.9 AR level - or, "fourth grade, ninth month" for independent readers). Anyone who loves language, acting, humorous moral tales will LOVE this one.

I loved reading this book to kids in the library. It has tons of great adjectives. It's full of fun and keeps kids guessing as to 'what will happen next?' I want to own this book!

"Tricker the Squirrel" is a wonderful story for young and old alike. I was lucky enough to read the book years ago and came across a videotaped performance of Kesey's rendition that is equally wonderful. When the holidays come around and I get to spend time with my young nephews and niece, it is one of my favorite stories to read. It gives me a chance to open up with fun inerpretations of the characters. The kids love it and they love to take their turns too being "Big Double", "Little Tricker" and the various others that get eaten by Big Double.

Sometimes, like now when I'm offered the opportunity to be the "first person to review this book," I think I must be the only person who has ever read this book. What a shame! With all the drivel out there that passes for children's literature, this book is probably just plain the most FUN to read out loud to your kid before he or she goes to bed at night. The dialect is laugh out loud FUNNY, the story moves along briskly, and by the way, did I mention that it was a lot of FUN? Ask my three sons -- in fact, I was wrong -- I'm not the only person to have read this book; each of my sons has picked it up on his own once he could read independently. A top choice. By the way, I loved Sometimes A Great Notion, too, but it's too long to read to my kids in one night.

I Love Little Tricker Meets Big Double the Bear. I am Borderline obsessed with it. After Reading One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest I wanted to find more Ken Kesey books and I read that Little Tricker was the book he was most proud of. I had to have it and when I got it I was not disappointed. The prose is perfect, the pictures stand alone and the story is the epitome of an american tall tale. Big Double would give Paul Bunyan a run for his money and Little Tricker is as clever as a fox with a shady past. I want to read it to my daughters every night. They are a little tired of it and say "Dadddy this is a kid's book and your a grown man." But I point out right there on the inside of the cover it says "For All Ages"....and it is.

This is a wonderful children's story in itself. I had it read to me (suprisingly) my Senior year in high school and I have fallen in love with it ever since. What is amazing about the this book is it takes very adult themes and puts them in terms children can understand without exposing the true horrors of man. And even more amazing is the paralells to Kesey's more famous novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." For example is Tricker the Squirrel not earily similar to McMurphy? And isn't Big Double the Bear a little too much like Nurse Ratched? But that is why this is such a beautiful book. A great book to read aloud to children and an even better one to read to yourself as an adult.