THE DREAM OF THE DORMOUSE

by Edgar Parker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 25, 1963

The adult reader has much to be tickled with here -- cleverly rhymed ballads, a spoof on campaign electioneering methods, a pirate bulldog who looks like Charles Laughton's Captain Bligh-- but all this may sail over the heads of its younger audience without leaving them very much beyond a standard plot. A dormouse, timid scribe to a governor, is shanghaied by a bulldog pirate to straighten out his ship's log. Carried off in his hibernation sleep, the dormouse awakens at sea with the idea that he is dreaming, tosses aside his usual character to become the roistering, swashbuckling master who heads the ship into Madagascar and winds up running for public office. A migrating ruff from the dormouse's hometown realizes that his friend believes himself to be asleep and guides his election balloon back home and gets him into bed again -- off on another dream. The illustrations are facile and facetious but it is a half and half affair -- too childish for adults, too sophisticated for a read aloud audience.

Pub Date: Feb. 25, 1963

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1963

Categories: CHILDREN'S