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JOCASTA CARR, MOVIE STAR by Roy Gerrard

JOCASTA CARR, MOVIE STAR

by Roy Gerrard & illustrated by Roy Gerrard

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-33654-7
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

When Jocasta's beloved companion and costar Belle (an Old English sheepdog) is kidnapped by Maxwell Pym, a film producer, the dauntless Jo flies after them in her handy little red seaplane, trailing them from Hollywood to New York, London, and ``Wangaloo'' in the Java Sea. There, she reclaims Belle and sets Pym's yacht adrift, stranding him and his accomplices until the police can pick them up. The slight plot is much enhanced by Gerrard's witty verse (pungent, felicitous words, all neatly rhyming and scanning without missing a beat) and even more by his elegantly mannered illustrations, setting the events in the 30's and using art deco touches not only in furnishings and architecture but in details (trees, waves, etc.) and in the decorations throughout. A round-the-world journey is standard picture-book fare, but this travelogue is unusually entertaining. (Picture book. 6+)