Grandma's Band - Hardcover

Bowles, Brad

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0880451122 ISBN 13: 9780880451123

Publisher: Stemmer House Pub, 1989

Synopsis

Grandma's enthusiastic one-woman washboard band captivates a number of neighboring animals and leads them to join her in making music

About this title

From School Library Journal:

PreSchool-Grade 1-- Bored with her Saturday morning chores, Grandma (the stereotypical apron-and-granny-glasses type) finds that she can play "diddle diddle diddle" on her washboard with her thimble. She adds tin cups, lids, and jars to her washboard band, and sings "Comin' Round the Mountain," "On Top of Old Smokey," and "I Went to the Animal Fair." A duck, a cow, a hen, a fox, and a wolf join in. Afterward, Grandma returns to her washing refreshed, and the jam session becomes a Saturday morning tradition. The spontaneity in the story's action and the animal sounds (from "moos" to "quacks") interspersed with the familiar song lyrics are the book's strong points. Unfortunately, there's no beauty to the text, only an imitation country twang that just misses, so that the "and do you know" and the "yes, they did" seem gratuitous. Also, the stylized paintings lack enough detail to support the amount of text. For a story with so much action and energy, the patchwork-patterned pictures have a static quality that is, unfortunately, enhanced by their quasi-primitive look. --Liza Bliss, Worcester Public Library, MA
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

This grandma doesn't bake mouth-watering pies or raise prize-winning roses-- this grandma is obviously a frustrated musician, and she gets herself a right good combo to prove it. One day she forgets to take off her thimble before proceeding to the washboard, and is entranced by the rhythmic sounds produced when metal meets metal: "like a stick dragged along a picket fence, only louder." Singing along at the top of her lungs, Grandma is inspired to add more "instruments," and assorted kitchen utensils continue the cacophony. These strange sounds reach the pond; before long an amiable duck joins in, quacking in counterpoint, and the band continues to expand. This silly down-home tale grows on the reader with each turn of a page, and it includes lyrics to several favorite ditties. An amusing landscape of patchwork-quilt hills is highlighted in Chan's suitably childlike, gaudy watercolors. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Stemmer House Pub
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0880451122
• ISBN 13: 9780880451123
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 43
• Illustrator: Chan Anthony