Two Sticks
PreSchool-Grade 1—A girl's love for drumming lands her in a swamp full of crocodiles (and then helps her find a way out of it). Wilsdorf captures the verve and action of the tale in vibrant colors and broad strokes. Maybelle's orange dress and shock of bushy orange-brown hair reflects her energy as she goes drumming around the bayou, beating two sticks on fences, logs, and crocodile teeth. The illustrations are so lively that readers can almost forget that they're static pictures and mistake them for animation. The images are large enough to use for storytimes, but the rhythm of the text is clunky at times and can be difficult to read while maintaining the pace. Still, for larger collections looking for another bouncy story,Two Stickscan serve a need.—Nancy Kunz, Tuckahoe Public Library, NYCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.