Cold Feet - Hardcover

Cynthia DeFelice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0789426366 ISBN 13: 9780789426369

Publisher: Dk Ink, 2000

Synopsis

After stealing a dead man's boots, a poor wandering bagpiper uses them to play a trick on an unfriendly farmer but then finds the trick turned back on him. By the creators of The Dancing Skeleton.

About this title

About the Author:

Cynthia DeFelice is the award--winning author of many young--adult and middle--reader novels, as well as the picture books Casey in the Bath, illustrated by Chris Demarest, and Willy's Silly Grandma, illustrated by Shelley Jackson. She lives with her family near acres of snowy woods in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Robert Andrew Parker last worked with Cynthia DeFelice on The Dancing Skeleton, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book. He is the illustrator of many favorite books for children, including Grandfather Tang's Story, by Ann Trompert, A Great Miracle Happened There, by Karla Kuskin, and The Hatmaker's Sign, retold by Candace Fleming. For adults, he recently provided etchings for a new translation of Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma for the Modern Library. Mr. Parker lives in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains.

From Publishers Weekly:

DeFelice and Parker (previously paired for The Dancing Skeleton) join forces again, this time to polish up a Scottish ghost story. When ragged, penniless Willie McPhee, "the finest bagpipe player in all of Scotland," stumbles across a dead man in the forest one snowy night, he helps himself to the boots. Unfortunately the man's feet come with them, snapping off when Willie tugs on the frozen legs. But "a poor man must be practical, after all," and Willie carries off the boots (and feet). Later he decides to play a trick on a heartless farmer who grudgingly sends him to the barn when he asks for shelter: Willie arranges the now-thawed feet to make it appear that their cow has eaten him. The horrified farmer and his wife quickly bury the evidence, but when Willie comes out of hiding and pipes a farewell tune atop the "wee small grave," they flee, thinking him a ghost. In the end, a bona fide ghost does appearDto Willie. DeFelice pitches this deliciously eerie tale in the kind of cadence and language that make for a grand read-aloud (e.g., the near-shoeless Willie goes "flip-flap, flip-flap, flip-flap down the road"), and she neatly preserves the regional flavor ("Och! They were fine-looking boots, they were!"). Beautifully set off by the understated book design, Parker's watercolors rank with his finest. The blotted impressionistic colors and scrawled lines are both edgy and amusing, while the cool gray tones create an appropriately chilly backdrop for the spooky antics. Ages 5-8.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dk Ink
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0789426366
• ISBN 13: 9780789426369
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Robert Andrew Parker