Kindergarten-Grade 3-Peg was born on her parents' fishing boat and grew up hauling sheets, pulling lines, and gutting fish. Now that she is almost seven and has already caught just about everything that lives in the sea, she decides to set her sights a bit higher and signs onto a whaling ship. A few days later, she hooks her prey, but the jealous first mate cuts the rope holding her to the mast and she is taken for a ride by the angry creature. Peg is never fazed, however, and as she flies through the air behind the huge animal, she thinks, "Just as well-That old ship was only slowing me down." The whale swallows her whole and Peg makes herself at home in its stomach, using driftwood to build a ladder to its blowhole. When she finally returns home, she is ready for a new kind of challenge-mountain climbing. This outrageous story never misses a beat, and the feisty, redheaded Peg is in a league with other modern tall-tale heroines such as Anne Isaacs's Swamp Angel (Dutton, 1994) and the star of Diane Stanley's Saving Sweetness (Putnam, 1996). Done in acrylic on paper, Widener's paintings have a bright quality and bits of exaggerated humor that suit the larger-than-life tale. A whale of an adventure story with a thoroughly likable heroine.
Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, Eldersburg, MD
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Ages 5-8. According to Oppel, this jaunty, action-packed tall tale was inspired by the old sea shanty "Jack Was Every Inch a Sailor" and by the biblical story of Jonah and the whale. It centers on a little girl, "pushing seven," who is determined to make her mark on the world. The tale progresses by boasts and brags. Peg, born in Gloucester oilskins, catches and guts fish with the best of them. But as the book's refrain goes, "She wanted big, she wanted better, she wanted best," so she fixes on hauling in a whale. She runs off to a whaling ship, excites the envy of some sailors with her fish-catching ability, and, in snagging her whale, is swallowed whole. How she survives and thrives makes for a funny and inspiring take on resourcefulness and optimism. Award-winning illustrator Widener showcases the witty exaggerations of the story in his vibrant acrylics. The double-page spread showing tiny Peg in yellow oilskins scanning the sea atop the enormous whale is, in itself, a tribute to courage. Children will like the way the illustrations splash across the pages, the tale's delightful humor, and the wonderful rhythm of the words. Connie Fletcher
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