No Dinner: The Story of the Old Woman and the Pumpkin - Hardcover

Souhami, Jessica

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0761450599 ISBN 13: 9780761450597

Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Corp/Ccb, 2000

Synopsis

Thanks to her resourcefulness and braveryas well as a clever granddaughteran old lady who lives in the woods outwits a number of beastly adversaries, including a bear, wolf, and tiger.

About this title

About the Author

Jessica Souhami studied at the Central School of Art and Design. In 1980 she formed Mme Souhami and Co, a travelling puppet company using colourful shadow puppets with a musical accompaniment and a storyteller. Her illustrations, like her puppets, use brilliant colour and bold shapes and her characters leap and swoop across the spreads. Her books for Frances Lincoln are Sausages!, In the Dark, Dark Wood, Baba Yaga and the Stolen Baby, Leopard's Drum, No Dinner!, Rama and the Demon King, The Famous Adventures of a Bird Brained Hen, The Little, Little House, Mrs McCool and the Giant Cuchulainn and King Pom and the Fox. Souhami lives in North London.

From Kirkus Reviews

Readers who remember Betsy Bangs 1999 retelling of the Bengali folktale The Old Woman and the Red Pumpkin (not reviewed) will recognize the same tale told here, based on a traditional story told throughout southern Asia. An old woman who is nothing but skin and bones is on her way to her granddaughters house to fatten herself up when out jumps a wolf, then a bear and last a tiger. Each one shouts the American BOO! rather than the Ury-bop! of its predecessor. The old woman convinces each animal not to eat her until she is fat. On her way home, her daughter hides her in a giant red pumpkin, where, rather than singing as she goes, she speaks, and the wolf mistrusts a talking pumpkin. In a twist on the ending, instead of the animals fighting about who is strongest among them, the old woman outwits the wolf by presenting her walking stick instead of her own leg to be eaten. The retelling has plenty of pleasing repetition, but lacks the cultural detail, flavor, and rhythm of Bangs edition. Nevertheless, young readers will find this a suspenseful read-aloud with large, expressive, curry-colored illustrations sure to glow bright across a room. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)-- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Corp/Ccb
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0761450599
• ISBN 13: 9780761450597
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32