LEARNING TO SKI WITH MISTER MAGEE
From the Mr. Magee series, volume 3
By Chris Van Dusen , Chris Van Dusen
Age Range: 4 - 8
Mr. Magee’s gone Down to the Sea and on A Camping Spree (2000, 2003), and now it’s time for him to ski. In rhyming couplets, he and his little dog Dee head out for a practice run on a nearby hill. On go the skis (equipped with hysterically antique bindings to go with Mr. Magee’s woolen knickers), into the backpack goes Dee and down the hill they go—straight at a moose. The ensuing slapstick is both predictable and very, very funny, with Mr. Magee and Dee limboing under the moose before they end up suspended, heads down, over a crevasse by the skis—across which the moose ambles. The pacing of both verse and shiny, retro illustrations excels, and Mr. Magee couldn’t hope to find a prettier landscape to fall down in. (Picture book. 4-8)