Hear That? - Hardcover

Janowitz, Tama

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1587170744 ISBN 13: 9781587170744

Publisher: Seastar Books, 2001

Synopsis

Maybe it's a mouse. Maybe it's a wombat. It may even be a walrus trying to escape from the refrigerator! As a mother and child wonder what each click, knock, and rattle in their house could possibly be, each guess gets wilder and wilder in this fantastic flight of imagination by novelist Tama Janowitz. Witty pictures and a clever text, chock-full of sounds, make this a perfect read-aloud. Young readers will be begging to Hear That? over and over again!

About this title

About the Author:

Tama Janowitz the highly regarded author of several novels for adults, including Slaves of New York and A Certain Age . This is her first book for children. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

From Publishers Weekly:

This rather bland dialogue between a mother and son begins in a dim living room, where a TV illuminates the remains of dinner. In the doorway to an untidy hall, the ominous words "buzz, buzz, buzz" appear. " `Ssshhh,' I said. `Hear that?' `Yes,' said Mom. `Maybe it's Daddy.' " The two investigate, but find only castoff toys and a banana peel. When the earnest narrator suggests that the buzzing could be a fly, his pert mother initiates a game, saying, "No... Hear that?" A "squeak, squeak, squeak," written in spiky black letters, emanates from the bedroom. Accompanied by their puzzled dog, the mother and son tiptoe around the house, alert to every thump, click and squish ("Maybe it's our wombat.... Or even our kangaroos!"). Novelist-turned-mom Janowitz (Slaves of New York) escalates the sequence into nonsense, then shows that the first guess was right. The child's grinning father bursts in with a dripping umbrella, and his wet appearance suggests that a storm produced the mysterious sounds. Dockray (Grimm's Grimmest) characterizes the family as wide-eyed and wholesome, and depicts a sloppy home where ants devour a leftover jelly sandwich and a walrus tumbles out of the fridge. With the possible exception of the "ginip-ginop," a bearish purple monster that fills an entire spread, the fantasy noisemakers amuse rather than frighten. This tepid tale's suspense depends on read-aloud performance, ideally on a rainy evening. Ages 5-8.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Seastar Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1587170744
• ISBN 13: 9781587170744
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Dockray Tracy