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REAL PONIES DON'T GO OINK

Those intrepid yeomen, Rancid Crabtree, Retch Sweeney, and author McManus, the Mencken of Mud (The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw, 1989, etc.), return in another collection of humorous pieces on hunting, fishing, and wasting time. McManus's patented recreational comedy deals with such mundane matters as fish scalers, used plywood, and scary critters. What follows inevitably is bucolic mayhem, do-it-yourself failure, and rafting on the Tushwallop River. Guest appearances are made by former girlfriend Olga Bonemarrow, Crazy Eddie Muldoon, and Henry P. Grogan and his son, Junior P. Grogan. Of course, there's wife Bun, who likes camping in. ``She likes a little something extra between her and the hard, cold ground, preferably several floors of a luxury hotel.'' McManus carefully builds a house of cards (Jokers), then takes a pratfall or two and knocks the whole construction down in risible catastrophe. Sometimes it's downright frightening. After one episode, Cousin Buck ``had a terrible expression on his face,'' the author tells us. ``I know the expression on my face was almost as bad, because I checked the next morning in the mirror.'' Brave woodsman he may be, but McManus sticks, along with Rancid and Retch, to the old familiar path. Never mind; it's all artfully devised, in an excursion that is as plain as beans and slick as soap, but funnier than either. There's nothing really new or earthshaking in these fey tales of hapless fishermen and numbskull Nimrods. But McManus watchers will want to know that the old rara avis is back in full plumage and chirping away, regular as the seasons.

Pub Date: June 5, 1991

ISBN: 0-8050-1651-1

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1991

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955

ISBN: 0670717797

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955

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