Just where is small Billy going? Why does he have a doughnut tied to his belt? Does he know he is being followed by, first, a hen (with a cluck, cluck, cluck), then a cat (all quiet and slinky), and, farther down Main Street, a band . . . and firemen? Then sign painters . . . brick layers . . . even cloud catchers! Author/illustrator Rebecca Bond reveals the truly marvelous things that can happen when a doughnut is tied up with string.
When Billy buys a doughnut and ties it to his belt with a string while walking down Main Street, he unwittingly sets off a chain of events that amazes and delights the entire town.Rebecca Bond grew up in the tiny village of Peacham in northeastern Vermont, which, like the town in this story, was inhabited by “wonderful people.” When she is not having fun painting and writing, Rebecca is busy fixing up her new (to her) old house in a neighborhood in Jamaica Plain, Boston. She is the author of several superb picture books.
Like the story of The Golden Goose, this fanciful picture book begins with a person who attracts an increasingly large crowd until he has spontaneously assembled a parade almost certain to make viewers laugh. Against a creamy blank backdrop, Billy marches along with a doughnut that, oddly, he has tied to his belt with a string. The doughnut attracts a chicken "who fancied herself a crumb of this thing"; it lures a cat, which incites a dog wearing a girl's dress, which brings a girl who runs along in her underpants. The characters and their activities multiply quickly without compromising their delicious particularity: "Adelaide Bead, who'd been doing her hair [and] bricklayers, horn players, painters and masons." Bond's (Just Like a Baby ) watercolors are kinetic and limber, chock-full of playful details. As the parade grows, it gains ever more whimsical participants—"cloud catchers" carrying butterfly nets, "citizens... from the pages of history," and even "Little May Pinker [with] things she had thought." Children will have fun tracing the promenaders' progress in Bond's lively excursion. Ages 3-6. (Sept.)
[Page 70]. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
PreS-Gr 1— A boy strolls down a street with a tasty doughnut tied to his belt. The goody, which trails enticingly behind him, attracts a hen that "…fancied herself a crumb of this thing." Soon they're joined by a cat, a dog, a little girl, and finally her costumed friends, who've been putting on a play. Before long, the doughnut parade has grown to include figures real (farm animals, firemen) and imagined (Mother Goose characters and "cloud catchers" with large nets). Then the boy's unexpected move results in a quiet conclusion. The poetic text reads well aloud ("And so followed Mabel, their Saturday sitter,/And Adelaide Bead, who'd been doing her hair"), and the watercolor figures are fluid and dynamic. However, the story lacks the spark and the inner logic of the most inspired silliness. Bond is a talented author/illustrator, but this is not her best effort.—Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL
[Page 158]. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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