Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda - Softcover

Atwood, Margaret

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1552636097 ISBN 13: 9781552636091

Publisher: Key Porter Kids, 2004

Synopsis

And now, a new tongue-twisting adventure from Margaret Atwood! The internationally renowned Margaret Atwood once again turns her talents to a story for kids of all ages. Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda is a boisterous and delightful dissertation on discovering the uncharted depths of one?s personality. Abandoned by his bubble-headed mum and raised by a bunch of dogs, Bob is understandably bashful around humans. Deprived of her parents while still in diapers, Dorinda endures a dreadful existence with distant relatives. On a dark and drizzly December day, Dorinda and Bob meet on a vacant block bestrewn with bushes, buttercups, and benches. They become fast friends. One day, a bewildered buffalo bounds over a barrier at a nearby Botanical Garden. Amid billows of dust and the beeping and blaring of horns, Bob and Dorinda band together to save the day. Relying on their wits?and the useful deployment of Bob?s dog buddies and Dorinda?s distracting dust mops?the dynamic duo restore order and emerge from the episode victorious. No longer bashful and doleful, Bob and Dorinda discover that they can be brave and daring. With Atwood?s trademark rollicking wordplay accompanied by Dusan Petricic?s mischievous art, Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda is a tale to be treasured.

About this title

About the Author:

Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1939. She is the daughter of a forest entomologist, and spent part of her early years in the bush of North Quebec. She moved, at the age of seven, to Toronto. She studied at the University of Toronto, then took her masters degree at Radcliffe College, Massachusetts, in 1962. She is Canada's most eminent novelist and poet, and also writes short stories, critical studies, screenplays, radio scripts and books for children, her works having been translated into over 30 languages. Her reviews and critical articles have appeared in various eminent magazines and she has also edited many books, including The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English (1983) and, with Robert Weaver, The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English (1986). She has been a full-time writer since 1972, first teaching English, then holding a variety of academic posts and writer residencies. She was President of the Writers Union of Canada from 1981-1982 and President of PEN, Canada from 1984-1986

From School Library Journal:

Grade 1-3–As in the author's Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut (Workman, 1995) and Rude Ramsey and the Roaring Radishes (Bloomsbury, 2004), sophisticated wordplay drives this story. Bob was abandoned beside a beauty parlor as a baby. Raised by three dogs, he barked when bothered and would bound behind bushes or burrow under benches. A block away, Dorinda has problems of her own. Dumped on distant relatives when her parents disappeared, she has lived a Cinderella-like existence, dealing with dirty dishes in a disreputable dive. When Dorinda meets up with Bob, she teaches him how to talk, and together they thwart the advances of a bewildered buffalo wrongly labeled a begonia by a bungling bureaucrat. The simultaneous exploits of the characters are shown in Petricic's line drawings. Color is used to great effect–Bob's scenes have a muddy gold wash and Dorinda's are rendered in purple. The witty, albeit ridiculous plot plays not only with language, but also with fairy-tale conventions. However, despite the happy ending, the relentless alliteration becomes tiresome.–Linda Ludke, London Public Library, Ontario, Canada
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About this edition

• Publisher: Key Porter Kids
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1552636097
• ISBN 13: 9781552636091
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32