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WHERE DOES ALL THAT SMOKE COME FROM? by Inger Sandberg

WHERE DOES ALL THAT SMOKE COME FROM?

By

Pub Date: Feb. 28th, 1973
Publisher: Delacorte

It looks at the start as though the text of this ill-disguised sermon is pollution, but little Peter and Polly gradually discover that the source of all that scribbly smoke is not the factory (which has a new filter in its chimney) or ""the world's biggest traffic jam"" or a burning building but a dragon with 30 cigarettes in his mouth. The dragon, it seems, started smoking in response to all those advertising posters and now just ""can't seem to stop"" -- not, that is, until Peter and Polly tell him about the cyanide, arsenic, and other poisons in cigarettes and remind him (though preschoolers could probably care less) that quitting will save him lots of gold and also get back the wife he's smoked out of their cave. At one point Polly is shown vomiting (yes she is!) from the noxious smoke; and small readers are likely to react similarly to the preachy pill the Sandbergs' are trying to force on them.