SKIP TO MY LOU

Quackenbush appends instructions for the dancing game performed to this popular folksong at ""play-parties"" that flourished in the 1830's, and the bulk of the book, which includes ten of the 150 or so known verses, depicts one such party, celebrating sister Lou's engagement, where the flies in the buttermilk, cat in the cream jar, pig in the parlor, etc., create such havoc that the formally clad groom-to-be flees. But, as Quackenbush pictures it, Lou ""found a partner, a better one too,"" and when last seen she is ""off to Texas"" on horseback with a bearded, fringed frontiersman. The easily followed story in pictures along with the potential for acting out gives Skip to My Lou more kick than many of Quackenbush's aggressively illustrated renditions of traditional American songs.