Booklist (September 15, 2010 (Vol. 107, No. 2))
Grades K-3. The little shepherd in the hoodie sweatshirt who starred in Betsy Who Cried Wolf! (2002) makes another appearance in this loopy, laugh-aloud adventure. Traditional story elements frame the tale: Betsy is asked to carry a basket of baked goods to her grandmother. She responsibly brings her sheep along, with the help of her unlikely co-shepherd, Zimmo the wolf, who disappears along the way. Betsy has always known that “wolves aren’t good for grandmas.” Is Zimmo up to no good? After journeying through mountains and mudslides, Betsy finally reaches her grandmother and finds her alive and well, entertaining surprise guests at a full-swing party. Levine’s well-paced, straightforward storytelling plays nicely against the broad comedy in Nash’s color-washed ink drawings, which are filled with comics-style speech balloons printed with asides and complaints from the sheep (“My wool is itchy”). Full of action, zaniness, and a few meta-moments in which characters crawl out of the story, this makes a good companion to David Wiesner’s similarly fractured The Three Pigs (2001).
Grades K-3. The little shepherd in the hoodie sweatshirt who starred in Betsy Who Cried Wolf! (2002) makes another appearance in this loopy, laugh-aloud adventure. Traditional story elements frame the tale: Betsy is asked to carry a basket of baked goods to her grandmother. She responsibly brings her sheep along, with the help of her unlikely co-shepherd, Zimmo the wolf, who disappears along the way. Betsy has always known that “wolves aren’t good for grandmas.” Is Zimmo up to no good? After journeying through mountains and mudslides, Betsy finally reaches her grandmother and finds her alive and well, entertaining surprise guests at a full-swing party. Levine’s well-paced, straightforward storytelling plays nicely against the broad comedy in Nash’s color-washed ink drawings, which are filled with comics-style speech balloons printed with asides and complaints from the sheep (“My wool is itchy”). Full of action, zaniness, and a few meta-moments in which characters crawl out of the story, this makes a good companion to David Wiesner’s similarly fractured The Three Pigs (2001).
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