No Thumpin', No Bumpin', No Rumpus Tonight!

Benjamin and Elephant set out one night to create a birthday breakfast for Benjamin's mother, and his understanding mother does her best to overlook the rumpus in her kitchen and to act surprised about her unusual breakfast

Kindergarten-Grade 2-- A fantastic adventure in which the illustrations are stronger than the text. Benjamin and his friend Elephant descend upon the kitchen just before 4:00 .. to prepare a surprise birthday breakfast for Benjamin's mother. The two arrange cereal dotted with ketchup and red jelly, squeeze fresh orange juice by playing baseball, and clean up their mess before taking Mother a breakfast tray. The frenetic watercolors feature a huge, lovable elephant with a floppy yellow hat and an endearing boy in too-small red pajamas who calls to mind Gerstein's young hero in Arnold of the Ducks (Harper, 1985). Readers will sense the sticky, soggy orange juice mess on the floor, and easily identify the cheese and pickle juice that create a macaroni-based cereal. The text is a hodgepodge of choppy rhyme and straight prose. The march of time is sometimes noted in numbers, and sometimes alphabetically, adding to the overall confusion of the experience. A nighttime foray into the kitchen is handled much more masterfully in Sendak's In the Night Kitchen (Harper, 1970) and Hest's The Midnight Eaters (Macmillan, 1989). --Reva Pitch Margolis, Norwood School, NJ
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In the wee hours of the morning, Benjamin and Elephant prepare a surprise birthday breakfast for the boy's mother. Elephant makes a special cereal concoction: "Then I plunk a hunk of cheese! Mush the mustard! Pour the peas! Add some rice, and then for spice I think we need some pickle juice . . . " Holding a jar of jelly in his trunk, Elephant next assembles some sandwiches, but in the process knocks over a bag of oranges, which tumble to the floor. Things deteriorate fast when Benjamin and Elephant begin to play catch with the oranges. Soon the kitchen is awash with juice--and Benjamin's mother is awake. But the two manage to get everything cleaned up and breakfast served--despite a great deal of thumpin', bumpin' and rumpus. A capricious rhyme enhances Patz's lively story. Unfortunately, muddy colors diminish the impact in a number of the amusing paintings that illustrate the tale. Ages 5-8.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.