Another Happy Tale

Happily, Mabel and Ned are the parents of a new baby, but unhappily, they are not good at taking care of her. And thus begins a tale.

PreSchool-Grade 2-- Raising a family has its ups and downs, but none as ludicrous as those related in this funny tale. Mabel and Ned don't know how to care for their new baby girl. Mabel hangs her by her diaper on a cup hook; Farmer Ned expects her to raise herself ``like the baby sheep and pigs.'' The little one soon looks and acts and smells like the young pigs. Accidentally, Ned sells her as part of the litter. Sid and Olive Cornstalk, her new owners, clean her up and try to feed her stewed apples and runny custard. Of course, Mabel and Ned buy her back. Resolving to become better parents, they study a library book, How to Bring Up Babies . The baby responds to some, but not all, of their newly learned techniques. This romp is related in alternate circumstances of ``happily'' and ``unhappily.'' These constant comparisons point up the humor and make the tale delightfully tellable. Illustrations capture the slapstick aspects. A broken egg on the baby's head, her growing resemblance to the animals, and her delight when cuddling up with the pigs--all expand the author's terse wording. Pale watercolors tone down the exuberant drawings that frequently pop out of the picture's frames. An inconsistency is one picture of the child with bright red hair; all others show her as almost bald, with a tuft of blonde. Storytellers and listeners will read and re-read this story to relish its comic outlandishness and satisfying good judgment. --Nancy Seiner, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Like A Happy Tale (1990), another comical tall tale in the alternating ``fortunately/unfortunately'' pattern--though this has more serious undertones: Mabel, shown gorging on pastries, leaves the baby to Ned, who ``was not very good at looking after babies either.'' Left to her own devices, the baby enjoys life with the pigs until ``Unhappily, one day Ned rounded up ...baby and all, and took them to market to be sold.'' ``Happily,'' the purchasers notice that she's a baby and treat her accordingly, despite her attempts to rejoin the pigs; after much entertaining slapstick, Mabel and Ned take her home, vowing to be better parents: they even join the library and are seen with the author's classic Babies Need Books, as well as the all-important Mother Goose. Purposive but disarmingly good-humored; Hurford's broad double spreads, from the vantage point of a small child, are crisp, clear, and amusingly in the spirit of the text. Parents should enjoy the satire and absorb the lesson without pain, while the three-year-olds will love the humorous exaggeration. (Picture book. 3-8) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.