Ol' Bloo's Boogie-Woogie Band and Blues Ensemble - Hardcover

Huling, Jan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1561454362 ISBN 13: 9781561454365

Publisher: Peachtree Publishing Company, 2010

Synopsis

Ol’ Bloo Donkey is dreaming of retirement, but he’s got something different in mind than Farmer Brown.
Ol’ Bloo has spent year after year hauling cotton and dreaming of the day when he could retire from the fields and become a honky-tonk singer. But when he overhears Farmer Brown’s ominously permanent retirement plan for him, Ol’ Bloo decides it’s time to hit the road. Brayin’ and hee-hawin’ his way toward the bright lights of New Orleans, Ol’ Bloo meets up with Gnarly Dog, One-Eyed Lemony Cat, and Rusty Red Rooster, all eager to join him for a lucrative second career. But when the ragtag quartet stumbles upon a tumbledown shack occupied by a band of thieves, their plans take a sudden and unexpected turn...
Jan Huling’s down home retelling of Grimm’s The Bremen Town Musicians set along the Texas-Louisiana border is filled with wit and charm. Illustrator Henri Sørensen’s full-color paintings capture the unique backwoods setting and distinctive personalities of the characters.

About this title

About the Author:

Jan Huling was born in Chicago and raised in St. Louis. She is the author of Ol’ Bloo’s Boogie-Woogie Band and Blues Ensemble and Puss In Cowboy Boots. Huling lives in New Jersey.

From School Library Journal:

Gr 1-3–Many readers will recognize the cover silhouette of four animals standing tall on one another's backs. The donkey, dog, cat, and rooster are surely those familiar music makers from Bremen. Huling casts them as the Boogie-Woogie Band and Blues Ensemble in this humorous spin on the Grimms' tale. As in Puss in Cowboy Boots (S & S, 2002), she sets her retelling in the rural South. Ol' Bloo Donkey, overhearing Farmer Brown's decision that “we can't afford to feed no critter that can't work,” runs off “to seek fame and fortune, hee-hawin' all the way.” He sets his sights on singing in a New Orleans honky-tonk and soon acquires a band of sorry cohorts. As expected, nightfall brings them to a cabin occupied by “three rough, tough, ugly-lookin' thieves, jest glarin' at one another and pickin' their teeth with their knives.” Huling has fun with dialogue and details, casting them in down-home language for a fulsome embellishment of the spare original. Sørensen's oils are softly fulsome, too, focusing on the homely, comic personalities of the animals and humans. Small, black-silhouette scenes facing many paintings are a suggestive tie to the original tale. Though the narrators are a bit loquacious, the rhythmic prose moves nicely. Some of the jazzy terms will be more familiar to adults, who are probably the most likely audience anyway for this spoof. The story should read aloud well, and the One-Eyed Lemony Cat all puffed up and screechin' in the match light of the thief will scare and delight many a viewer.–Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Bostonα(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

About this edition

• Publisher: Peachtree Publishing Company
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1561454362
• ISBN 13: 9781561454365
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Sorensen Henri