THE OLD WOMAN AND THE RED PUMPKIN

by Betsy - Trans. & Adapt. Bang ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1975

There was once an old woman who was so bent over she had to hold herself up with a stick, and she waggled her head when she walked, tok-tok."" With this ear pleasing, irresistible introduction Bang begins the same story Gloria Skurzynski told with less flavor in The Magic Pumpkin (KR, 1971) -- about an old woman who meets a jackal, a tiger, and a bear as she walks through the forest to visit her granddaughter, but talks them all into waiting to eat her on the return trip when she will be much fatter. And indeed she is, after eating the granddaughter's ""curds and curry and curry and curds and curds and curry and more"" -- as Molly Garrett Bang's comical derivatives of Indian folk art make conspicuously clear -- but still she's agile enough to escape from all three after the pumpkin she's tiding home in bursts and she sets the animals to fighting for her head. Smartly handled, and the appended Indian vocabulary (though a pronunciation guide would have helped) is an extra.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1975

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1975

Categories: CHILDREN'S