Please, Malese! A Trickster Tale from Haiti - Hardcover

Amy MacDonald; Emily Lisker

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374360006 ISBN 13: 9780374360009

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2002

Synopsis

Full of sly wit and the vibrant colors and rhythms of Haiti.

"My toes are suffering," says Malese as he stretches out in his hammock. "They need new shoes, that's what they need." Malese has not a penny to his name and nothing to trade, but does he worry? Not at all. His pockets may be empty, but his mind is full of clever ideas. It isn't long before he's thought up a trick to get himself some fine new shoes. From marketplace to mountainside, Malese outsmarts his neighbors with trick after trick, until they've had enough and are determined, for once, to get the best of him.

Readers will giggle when they see who gets the best of whom in this fresh and funny trickster tale, illustrated with art that explodes with the brilliant colors of Haiti.

About this title

About the Author

Amy MacDonald's books include Quentin Fenton Herter III and Rachel Fister's Blister, which appeared on Fanfare, The Horn Book's Honor List. She lives in Falmouth, Maine.

Emily Lisker has illustrated numerous books. She lives in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

From Publishers Weekly

Against an exuberantly painted Caribbean backdrop, a wily man causes so much trouble that his neighbors would rather set him free than keep him in jail. Malese tricks the village cobblers into making him a free pair of shoes and swindles the rumsellers out of enough rum to make himself a cake. The angry neighbors soon realize they've been duped, but when they lock him up, he convinces them that captivity is a privilege. Maintaining his sentence (supplying him with food, etc.) pains them more than their prisoner, and they decide to let him go. But, like a Haitian Tom Sawyer, Malese objects with a list of the chores that await him until they agree to undertake the tasks ("If I go home, I'll just have to mend my gate," he says; "We'll mend your gate for you..." they promise. "Please, Malese!"). Sure enough, the last spread shows him asleep on his hammock in his lemon-yellow house while his neighbors tend to the repairs. Lisker's (Sol a Sol) angular folk-art figures with expressive eyes and mahogany skin sport clothes woven in lively, repetitive patterns that contrast with broad planes of turquoise, orange and pink. Tricksters may be traditionally smooth talkers, but Malese scoffs at his neighbors' high prices and shoddy work. Their acceptance of his way of life is one of the story's pleasures. MacDonald (Rachel Fister's Blister) spins a narrative with authenticity and verve. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0374360006
• ISBN 13: 9780374360009
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32