Boo to a Goose

A boisterous baker's dozen silly rhymes presents rollicking and whimsical scenarios about what a young person would do rather than frighten a goose, including feeding pajamas to piranhas and walking on knees past a hive full of bees.

PreSchool-Grade 1?Bold-colored backgrounds smartly display Miller's highly textured paper assemblages, which look as though they could be plucked off the page. The paper?cut, contoured, layered, curled, and folded?has been given extra dimension through colored-pencil shadings and then effectively positioned to good effect. The text, a boy's recitation of the 12-plus reasons for not saying boo to a goose, includes "I'd dance with a pig in a shining green wig" and "I'd feed my pajamas to giant piranhas" and will have children quickly chiming in on the repeating line?"But I wouldn't say 'boo' to a goose." Readers will have to wait until the last page to find out why. In the classroom, this book could provide a model for youngsters to write additional lines of their own. Joseph Low's Boo to a Goose (Scribners, 1975; o.p.), a story about a boy who overcomes his fear of a mean old goose, will make a nice companion story.?Barbara Elleman, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Something is troubling the narrator of Fox's tale: ``I'd ride on a 'roo to Kalamazoo but I wouldn't say `Boo!' to a goose.'' He'd ``play with a snake'' if he found one awake, and he'd feed his pajamas to giant piranhas, but he ``wouldn't say `Boo!' to a goose.'' The rhymes are whimsical--he'd also ``gobble up snails from smelly old pails''--while Miller's three-dimensional, cut-paper collages are startlingly real. The piranhas sport menacing teeth, the trees that cling to a hillside look as if readers could climb them, and the butter that is consumed on the way to Calcutta is a mountain of individual golden slices. In words and art, a delightful mix of nonsense and verve. (Picture book. 4-8) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 2^-5. The fearful coward who "wouldn't say `BOO!' to a goose" turns brave in a series of silly rhyming fantasies gorgeously illustrated with dramatic cut-paper collages. On each double-page spread there is a daring scenario ("I'd feed my pajamas to giant piranhas" or "I'd take a long walk from here to New York"), followed each time by the refrain ("But I wouldn't say `BOO!' to a goose"). Toddlers will shout the refrain, and they will enjoy making up their own wild, funny rhymes. Hazel Rochman