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BUTTON EYE'S ORANGE by Jan Wahl

BUTTON EYE'S ORANGE

By

Pub Date: Oct. 15th, 1981
Publisher: Warne

This latest of Wahl's deliberately old-fashioned sob stories features Bonzer, who has a leg in a brace, his mother who sews stuffed toys on into the night, and the stuffed toy dog Button Eye, a mistake with one leg sewn on backwards, whom Bonzer has stolen for himself. One night Bonzer, in his sleep, cries out ""I want an orange!"" and pushes Button Eye onto the floor. Bonzer's mother picks up the toy (""Here's one I dropped"") and takes it to market with the rest. Well, you've heard of toyshop toys coming awake at midnight. At this market toys, puppets, old shoes, cracked eggs, and lettuce leaves jig and romp. But Button Eye's sole thought is to obtain an orange for Bonzer--and he does remove it from the market, outrunning in the process balloons, turnips, and onions, and turning down the straw puppets' invitation to stay. (The orange, inconsistently, is not alive like the onion and other produce.) At dawn Button Eye falls asleep on the sidewalk, but Bonzer and his mother find him there and the orange with him. Watson's nostalgic pictures in glowing pastel colors are faithful to the story's tone, and in fact provide Button Eye and company with a soft solidarity where the story is simply soft.