William Wegman's Farm Days
Kindergarten-Grade 2.  If you have young patrons (and/or their parents) who have enjoyed Wegman's Cinderella (1993) and William Wegman's Mother Goose (1996, both Hyperion), you will have an audience for this spin-off of the old tale of the country mouse and the city mouse. For those not familiar with Mr. W's productions, the photo illustrations star his patient, photogenic weimaraners, posed wearing human clothes and rather eerily depicted with human hands?and feet?where necessary. In this tale of a lesson learned, city boy/dog Chip visits his friends on Farmer McFay's farm and is inveigled into doing all the work. While Chip doggedly digs and plants and cleans cow stalls and mows and acts as a scarecrow, his pals dawdle, sip milk, fish, and generally loll about. A wiser Chip packs up and heads cityward to star as a drummer in a nightclub combo. Several illustrations might give young non-farmers the mistaken impression that a varied crop of veggies can be reaped from four spindly plants (tomatoes?), that hay is mowed with a hand-pushed lawn mower, and that scarecrows are needed in long-harvested cornfields. Very peculiar.?Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NYCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.