From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3-In this silly cautionary tale, Rosoff presents the catastrophic results of friendships with wild boars that are "dirty and smelly, bad-tempered and rude." Horace will "cut the strings off your puppets" and "make fun of your feet," Morris shares his fleas, Boris leaves a smelly trail of destruction, and Doris is "uglier than an Ugli fruit." Like cunning children without manners, these creatures lack the ability to say "excuse me" or "please"; they break toys, stomp on treats, soak in the toilet, and devour treasures. It's clear they can not be trusted. The wily quartet appears dressed for play in cartoon displays of their unmannered excesses. Large, gouache illustrations follow the snort, stomp, and smell of the boars viewed either from a safe vantage point or eyeball to eyeball. The artist's attention to detail underscores the tiniest hairs and the grimiest clothes, down to the minute bow on Doris's head. The animals' eyes reveal their true deceitful nature in encounters with trusting children. An entertaining choice for independent reading or group sharing.
-Mary Elam, Forman Elementary School, Plano, TX Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
*Starred Review* PreS-Gr. 2. Rosoff, winner of the 2005 Michael L. Printz Award for her YA novel
How I Live Now (see
The Booklist Interview, p.1289), does a 180 in this picture book about dirty, stinky, mean boars. Yet there is a thread between the two books. Both are bitingly funny and deeply satisfying--each on its own level, of course. Morris, Boris, Horace, and Doris don't like others, and don't want others to like them. Consequently, being polite to Boris results in a tusk in the butt. If you try to help Horace with his mittens, he'll make a nasty smell and snort with laughter. Doris may be the worst case, though--the stinkiest, ugliest, bossiest boar of all. If the boars say they'll be nice when they visit your home, don't believe them. They'll do everything from soaking in your toilet to cutting the string off your puppets. Doris will eat your stuffed animals. So, everyone agrees that there is no such thing as a nice wild boar, but--as the final picture shows--you may run into one that is sweet ("though chances are that you won't"), and then you will be amazed. Blackall's roll-on-the-ground-in-laughter illustrations are incisively rendered in ink and gouache. There's not a bad habit, predilection, or odor that isn't described or drawn, and the boars' sly reactions to the havoc they cause are priceless. Let's hope for more from this disgustingly delightful group. Wild, they may be. Bores, they are not.
Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
