The Big Cheese of Third Street

From Publishers Weekly Little Benny Antonelli is "no bigger than a peanut butter sandwich," a real handicap on Third Street, which is peopled with "bus-sized women," "skyscraper-sized men" and "kids taller than streetlights." Newcomer Gordon accentuates the contrast, recording the scene from Benny's perspective on the street as shoes, feet and wheels come at him, the urban skyline rising up to the top of the spread. The object of many a prank (he's taped to a toy airplane, his "worst sister" pins him to the clothesline "along with the Big Antonelli underpants"), Benny has only one defense: to climb street signs, fire escapes, drainpipes and the like. He hits bottom when his aunt mistakes him for a tomato and tosses him into the salad. But he finally gets a chance to shine at his block party's greased pole climb, where he wins the prize: cheese. Anderson's (Speak) urban tall tale is a hoot, from her cheeky take on the woes of runt-hood to her pliant use of exaggeration and sassy street talk ("You got your games, you got your food, you got your music," describes the block party). Gordon picks up on the sly humor and fills his sturdy, uncomplicated cityscapes with comic touches, from the barrel-chested men in their sleeveless undershirts to the looming perspectives that help magnify the scale for diminutive Benny. Ages 5-8. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal Grades 1-3--Young Benny Antonelli is no bigger than a peanut-butter sandwich, while the rest of his family and their friends are the size of buses and skyscrapers. Big people toss him around like a ball, make him walk a gigantic dog, sweep him up with the trash, and put him in a salad thinking that he's a tomato. All the while, the child looks scared, sad, and angry; he feels "Lower than pigeon poop." Then, at the annual block party, the big folks are unable to climb a greased pole and retrieve the cheese from the top. One spread shows them sliding down and falling off-one fellow is nearly mooning readers. The young hero then climbs the pole, recovers the prize, and becomes, "badda-boom, badda-bing.-The Big Cheese of Third Street." This book aims to teach that size doesn't matter and that the little guy can triumph in the end, but the execution is unsuccessful. The stylized, blocky illustrations border on scary, and the tone of the text is flip and smart-alecky, "Geeeesh, what did you think this story was about?" The language throughout imitates the vernacular speech one might expect to hear in sections of Brooklyn, NY. A disappointing effort from this versatile author.