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PLAYING POSSUM by Edward Eager Kirkus Star

PLAYING POSSUM

by Edward Eager

Pub Date: June 15th, 1955
Publisher: Putnam

Here's a marvellous bit of realism that puts little embroidery on an incident common to everyday life but seldom found in picture books. A possum is trapped in a barrel, and a family mother, father and young son are at odds as to the animal's identity and what to do about it. Parental distaste and misinformation bring on the exterminator, and firm instructions to young Billy to let the poor creature "die in peace". But Billy, who knows only a playing p......, sneaks out to tip over the barrel and let the possum escape. Paul Galdone's drawings, many of them from a possum's point of view, are sharp commentaries, not without satire, on human and animal nature.