PRETZELS

by Arthur Dorros ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1981

A new comic talent, a tub of a sailing ship and its properly eccentric crew--but of the three adventures aboard the Bungle here, only the first is distinctive in kind. That's ""How Pretzels Were Invented."" How? Well, when part of the Bungle's anchor chain rusted away (with no replacement--thanks to Captain Fast's fuzzy-headedness), the crew commandeered some of cook I-Fryem-Fine's hard-as-rock biscuit dough and improvised a chain; and he, reusing the twisted dough the next day, shaped it into a new, twisted kind of biscuit, flecked with salt crystals from the sea--which First Mate Pretzel devoured so avidly ""that the crew named them after him."" The second tale, ""The Jungle,"" is conventional--a floating log mistaken for a crocodile, a piranha, and a snake--and the third, ""A New Land,"" is a fairly routine mixup (mapless, the Bungle's crew bungles back home, unbeknownst) that, however, has considerable amusement value just on the basis of Dorros' knack for writing straight-faced nonsense. The pictures are droll in the same simple, offhand fashion--with the result that, even when the story isn't much, the book is mighty companionable.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1981

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Greenwillow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1981

Categories: CHILDREN'S