Into the Castle

In an exciting mystery, five brave friends enter an old castle in an attempt to discover if someone, or something, is living deep inside the dark dungeon walls.

PreSchool-K?A lyrical picture book akin to Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury's We're Going on a Bear Hunt (McElderry, 1989). Here, three brave children, a dog, and a horse go to a castle they believe has been abandoned by a monster. "On the hill is a castle?/Let's go and see./They say a monster lives inside,/But no, that couldn't be." Around the castle is a moat, across the moat a drawbridge, beyond the drawbridge a yard, across the yard a passage, etc. Yet the group finds no real signs of life until they arrive in a dark dungeon where indeed there is a monster. They run out the door, up the steps, along the passage, retracing their way to safety. Once there they hear the shouts of a friendly monster: "Thanks for letting me out!" With double-page, cartoonlike watercolor-and-pencil illustrations depicting characters dressed in medieval costumes and a rhythmic text that easily lends itself to audience participation, this story is a fine choice for a read-aloud setting.?Helen Rosenberg, Chicago Public Library, IL
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 3^-6. Crebbin's medieval restaging of "Let's Go on a Bear Hunt" follows five friends--a girl, a boy, a toddler, a dog, and a pieball horse--into the castle looking for the monster said to live there. On, around, across, down, out, up, and over, the prepositions march in this easy epic adventure. Bordered by festive striping, the rhyming text flies like a banner alongside the top of each double-spread illustration, done in the soft watercolor-and-pencil media characteristic of many Candlewick picture books. These illustrations unfurl each scene as the wide-eyed explorers venture deeper into the castle, shriek at meeting the monster, and beat a hasty retreat. The last spread shows the fuzzy, blue monster waving from atop the tower and shouting, "Thanks for letting me out!" Full of fun suspense but never frightening, this twist on a classic jump story will feed monster mania and set preschoolers gleefully charging off into the castle. Annie Ayres