On this recording, consummate storyteller Davis recalls--with plenty of down-home warmth and humor--the childhood visits he made to his grandmother's rural North Carolina home. Davis's deceptively simple tales have the distinct and easygoing pace of family yarns spun on the front porch. He gleefully remembers the best thing about staying with Grandma in a farmhouse with no electricity or running water: no baths! Davis's descriptions of the loving--and extra-lenient--ways of grandparents will surely strike a chord with many young listeners. And in one particularly memorable passage, inspired by the taunt "Boys are better than girls are," an eight-year-old Davis, his younger brother and their two cousins experience the repercussions of a very funny battle of the sexes involving library books, corncobs and "piles of brown stuff one of my granddaddy's cows had left." Ages 8-up. (Dec.) FYI: Families will find additional listening fun on Davis's Braces, a simultaneous release about the sometimes humorous traumas of young orthodontia patients. (Cassette, 57 min. $12 ISBN 0-87483-581-X, ages 8-up; Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Grade 6 Up-Donald Davis offers two tales of his youth in rural North Carolina. His southern drawl enhances the ambiance, but oddly placed pauses and unusual inflections tend to detract from the storyline, as does a hollow feel to the sound quality. In the title story, Davis recalls his early teens when his crooked, cavity-prone teeth required braces. What he initially thinks is going to be a torture turns into a monthly excuse for adventure when he is allowed to travel by bus to the dentist in Asheville on his own. In "Why I Live at the Beach," Davis tells of a trip he took in his mid-teens to Myrtle Beach. It includes an unlikely episode in which the boys are severely sunburned after apparently misunderstanding how sun block works. These stories will have limited appeal for most young adults.
Diana Dickerson, White Pigeon Community Schools, MI
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.