How to Catch an Elephant - Softcover

Amy Schwartz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0751307440 ISBN 13: 9780751307443

Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Child's H/B

Synopsis

Provides instructions for using such necessary tools as cakes, raisins, tweezers, and a telescope to catch an elephant.

About this title

About the Author

Amy Schwartz has written and illustrated many classic picture books, among them Bea and Mr. Jones, a "Reading Rainbow" Feature, Oma and Bobo, Annabelle Swift, Kindergartner, and A Teeny Tiny Baby, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

From Publishers Weekly

Schwartz's (Old MacDonald Had a Farm) girl narrator, ardently in pursuit of a pachyderm, gives her audience some deceptively simple instructions for snaring one. The tools required for the catch, she explains, are few: three cakes, two raisins, one telescope and a pair of tweezers. Speaking breezily, the youngster then advises readers to "ask your Uncle Jack to bring you to the place where elephants go." Equally breezy unadorned gouache art depicts the girl carrying tiny tweezers and a large telescope as she follows her uncleAwho balances a boxed cake on his head while gripping two others in his handsAto just the right spot. With playful repetition and shrewdly kid-targeted visual humor, the author chronicles the capturing of a temperamental, brightly hued yellow pachyderm. To offer a hint at the outcome without giving it away, the fellow loves raisins but hates cakeAand becomes quite tiny when viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. Generous supplies of whimsy and understated humor turn out an engaging, outlandish how-to. Ages 3-6. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Child's H/B
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0751307440
• ISBN 13: 9780751307443
• Binding: Paperback