MAMA DON'T ALLOW

by Thacher Hurd ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 1984

A brash, wicked take-off on the title song. Down in Swampville, young raccoon Miles gets a saxophone for his birthday. And when Mama and Papa send him outside to practice, he connects up with three other ear-splitting musicians to form (as mouse trumpeter Doc dubs it) the Swamp Band. ""Soon the whole town cried out: 'SWAMP BANDS PLAY IN THE SWAMP!'"" There, the menacing alligators turn out (in a great turn-of-the-page) to be jazz enthusiasts: ""WE LOVE THAT SWAMP BAND MUSIC!!"" So that night, aboard the riverboat, the band plays for the Alligator Ball ""their favorite song"". . . MAMA DON'T ALLOW. . . to double-page spreads of the fancy-dressed, jiving alligators. But when the music is over, ""The alligators snapped their jaws and smacked their lips""; and the Swamp Band is about to go into the stew-pot when Miles suggests ""one more song""--a lullaby of Swampland that puts the alligators to sleep. . . and that Miles and the others play quietly up slumbering Main Street right up to his parents, waiting on the porch. High-energy, high-decibel fun for young rowdies, with some agreeable echoes (and never a suggestion of black caricature anywhere).

Pub Date: Sept. 5, 1984

ISBN: 0064430782

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1984

Categories: CHILDREN'S