Guess What? - Hardcover

Fox, Mem

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152004521 ISBN 13: 9780152004521

Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books, 1990

Synopsis

Through a series of yes-or-no questions, the personality and occupation of Daisy O’Grady are revealed--she’s a witch! “A fascinating brew combining pop culture, Halloween symbols, favorite book characters, and the worthy message that even outrageously peculiar behavior may not be evil.”--Kirkus Reviews

About this title

About the Authors

MEM FOX is the author of many acclaimed books, including Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, Possum Magic, Koala Lou, Time for Bed, and, for adults, Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever. She lives in Adelaide, Australia.

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Reviews

Grade 2-4-- A picture book with off-center wit and style. The structure is simple,wit and style. The structure is simple, introduced on the first page with a flat statement: "Far away from here lives a crazy lady called Daisy O'Grady." This is followed by a series of questions ("Is she tall? Guess!") that are answered with a resounding "Yes!" when the page is turned. Each exchange builds a description of a woman who, it is increasingly obvious, is a witch. The last lines, however, are reassuring: "Some people say she's really mean. But guess what? She's NOT!" The text is paired with illustrations that add to the eerie atmosphere with a photographic surrealism. Framed sharply to face the text, which is in large print, the pictures become increasingly bizarre in their use of detail, commenting on the text as much as extending it. Gouache paintings portray a mildly engaging eccentric; the feeling of the illustration is darkly humorous while the words are sunnily simple and the structure is, at its root, reassuringly anticlimactic. The conflict is reflected in the final illustration: Daisy with an unidentified, fresh-faced young girl--a witch in training, perhaps? Fox bows off briskly, but Goodman trails away confusingly. The result is an entertaining picture book in which the visual style is too sophisticated for the text and the text too uncomplicated for the grotesque humor of the visual style. The whole, while interesting, is thus less than the sum of its parts. --Christine Behrmann, New York Public Library
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Just as actors are occasionally miscast, so too can authors and illustrators be mismatched by the powers that be in publishing: Fox's latest picture book is a classic example. Her bare-bones storyline, in which she poses and answers a series of questions about a witch named Daisy O'Grady, isn't the problem--although it is surprisingly pedestrian--rather, the blunder is with the choice of illustrator. In a book aimed at very young children, Goodman's surreal visions, at times reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch, far too often overstep the bounds of good taste--and even stray into the Freudian, as in one instance where a dead fish dangles from a pair of panties hanging on a clothesline. The sophomoric humor (a jar is labeled "Porksnot & Co.--Mucus Pickle"), of the sort that delights readers of Mad magazine, will go right over the heads of the intended audience. They, unfortunately, will more likely focus on the book's nightmarish elements: insects crawling in the witch's bed, an owl with a dead mouse in his beak and the frightening visage of Daisy O'Grady herself. On all counts, this is a peculiar production. Ages 3-up.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0152004521
• ISBN 13: 9780152004521
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Goodman Vivienne
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32