Monday's Troll

From Publishers Weekly A dynamite team, Prelutsky and Sis (The Dragons Are Singing Tonight) are back on the job, once again dishing up a smorgasbord of verbal and visual delights. They return here to the theme of enchantment, but of the non-fire-breathing type this time around. With his practiced pen, Prelutsky goes right for the funny bone, and his nimble rhymes shine when spotlighting such creatures as the crotchety witch ("My rooms are suffused/ With perennial gloom,/ I never go out,/ I've retired my broom"), a mother ogre's grotesquely funny lullaby to her hideous offspring ("Stifle your tantrum, no kicking, don't bite./ Close your red eye... baby ogre, good-night"), and of course the troll of the title ("Monday's troll is mean and rotten,/ Tuesday's troll is misbegotten"). Occupying full spreads in the guise of antique, framed paintings, Sis's exquisitely detailed artwork, with its distinctive fine cross-hatched lines and bold, unusual color combinations (gentian and ochre, chartreuse and gray), lampoon the ghoulish elements of the verse?his ogres, for instance, are cheerful creatures, watering their flowers and cuddling their children. Sly interpretations (a Snow White-type peeps into the window of the miniature bedroom shared by the seven characters of "Monday's Troll") provide a rich visual context for the collection. Ages 4-up. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From School Library Journal Grade 3-6?A humorous brew of art and poetry that echoes the collaborators' The Dragons Are Singing Tonight (Greenwillow, 1993), with the same design, layout, and some of the same themes appearing here. Expanding the cast of creatures beyond dragons to include trolls, witches, ogres, wizards, and giants, this 17-poem collection overflows with energy, tongue-in-cheek wit, rich vocabulary, and rollicking rhyme and meter. The oil and gouache paintings on gesso backgrounds are equally playful, as each gold-bordered, double-page spread adds more layers of meaning to the words. "I Told the Wizard to His Face" features a staring, bespectacled boy sitting in front of a computer that has a wizard's face on the screen. "Bellow" is a craggy volcano-ogre that spits out its meals (hapless creatures) in a flurry of rocks. "Seven grubby goblins" crouch in an egg carton, ready to scare the wits out of whoever peeks inside. Read the selections aloud to make this gruesome, ghastly group come alive.?Jane Marino, Scarsdale Public Library, NYCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.