GIA: And the One Hundred Dollars Worth of Bubblegum

by Frank Asch ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1974

The formless messiness of a bubblegum binge sets the tone of Frank Asch's kicky black and white dream pictures of Gia, who buys the gum with the reward a dog gives her for giving up a circus outing to fix his hurt paw. The sequence with the dog is pictured, as if viewed through a scope, in large circles on center page; the surrounding space and oversized freeform letters on the facing page are filled in with loosely associated but tightly packed line doodles. Then there's a shift to cloud-puffy letters and free white space when Gia and her friends blow such huge and sticky bubbles that one rises into the air with the children stuck to it. The bubble bursts in a collision with a seagull, but Gia's characteristically kindly attention to the gull's gummed-up wing saves the children from tumbling, for the bird in return takes them all flying around the world -- ""and dropped them off at the circus just in time for the evening show."" This is no more enduring than the balloon that carries Gia aloft, though kids who are so inclined can blow their minds scrutinizing all the silly background scribbles that invite being filled in with crayons.

Pub Date: April 1, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories: CHILDREN'S