The Moon & Riddles Diner and the Sunnyside Cafe - Hardcover

Willard, Nancy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152019413 ISBN 13: 9780152019419

Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books, 2001

Synopsis

Accompanied by recipes for kids, a delightful picture book presents an eclectic assemble of characters who frequent The Moon & Riddles Diner and the Sunnyside Cafe where weird and magical things happen, from a talking spoon and teapot to a pancake-cooking frog. 15,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

NANCY WILLARD's witty characters and lyrical poems have long delighted children and adults. Her picture bookA Visit to William Blake's Inn, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen, was awarded the Newbery Medal. Ms. Willard lives with her husband in Poughkeepsie, New York, and teaches creative writing at Vassar College.
CHRIS BUTLER is an award-winning artist whose work has been featured on television as well as in billboard and print ads.The Moon & Riddles Diner and the Sunnyside Café is his first picture book. He lives with his wife and daughter in Longmont, Colorado.

Reviews

Gr 1-5-In this collection of poems about Shoofly Sally and her experiences at an unusual restaurant, it is as if the wordplay of Edward Lear marries the mystical New Age otherworldliness of Shirley MacLaine. While that's an interesting juxtaposition, other elements combine to create an ultimately disjointed product. An introductory story describes how a child discovers a postcard with a picture of the diner and caf‚; on the back is a message from Sally. The Mother Goose verse "Sally Go Round the Sun" appears on the next page. Willard then launches into an assortment of poems, starting with a selection about Sally's affection for and adventures related to the diner. With some of the poems, it is hard to discern the thematic connection. Several are told in the first person, while others are relayed from an omniscient viewpoint. A variety of forms is used, from a ballad to a limerick to the blues. Fourteen related recipes appear at the end. While the poems can be enjoyed individually-and Butler's paper sculptures offer marvelously textured images on which to feast the eye-it is tedious to attempt reading this book in one sitting. The jumble of forms and viewpoints hampers the flow. The story line is secondary to the art and suffers as a result.-Wendy Lukehart, Harrisburg School District, PA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

This airy but underdone collection has more style than substance. Willard's (The Tale I Told Sasha) prose preface introduces Shoofly Sally and the denizens of the eponymous establishment where "those who aren't eating are cooking. Those who aren't cooking are hooting and hollering. Everybody is dancing." The characters, animate and inanimate, tell their stories in rhymes and ballads. While the repetition of phrases and recurring characters hint at an overall theme, various motifs are never resolved. And while the fanciful similes are often apt (the teapot's crooning sounds "like the morning fog"), the language sometimes seems chosen more for sound or whimsy than for sense. The ample humor (in such notions as a cracked teapot that sings the blues and such puns as the Stubborn Stove's burners that play "Home on the Range") is dissipated by the arbitrary appearance and disappearance of the themes and characters. Newcomer Butler's striking illustrations, made by photographing layered, cut-paper sculptures, have the intricacy of David Wisniewski's work plus robust dimensionality. But the meticulously wrought figures lack personality; in general, the illustrations seem to focus on image and design at the expense of clarifying the text. Like a riddle without an answer, the art and text ultimately disappoint. Eight pages of recipes are appended. Ages 6-9.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Ages 5-8. When the moon and the sun open their own cosmic cafes, emerald antelopes sing, teapots croon the blues, and the specialties are tornado brew and starlight stew. Shoofly Sally and her dog, Everything, hurtle through this outrageous world in poems that are sophisticated but still preschool appropriate. Here, rich metaphors combine with the delicious nonsense of Mother Goose and the frank words and infectious rhythm of folk music and blues. Written mostly in the voices of the animals and objects that Sally meets, the poems collectively form a dream rather than a story, linked by odd character vignettes and a vague, enchanted sense of place. But children won't need to grasp the concrete to delight in the magical voyage and playful language, which is nicely imagined in Chris Butler's appealing cut-paper collages, similar to David Wisnewski's work but with more subtle coloring. Recipes linked to the poems conclude this vivid, fantastical collection. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0152019413
• ISBN 13: 9780152019419
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Butler Chris
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40