Woody - Hardcover

"I'm bored," announces Woody, a young pig who sports overalls and a red-and-white checked shirt. So his mother sends him outdoors to find something to do. Sitting in a field, he blows on a dandelion puff while muttering, "I wish I were doing something really exciting." Immediately, Woody is high in the air, plummeting headfirst toward the ground . . . until a parachute on his back opens. Having liked this taste of adventure, the plucky pig blows on yet another puff, this time wishing that he were a football player. When he is tackled by a trio of much larger rhino players, Woody reaches for a dandelion growing on the field--just in the nick of time. Similarly advantageously placed dandelions save him from calamity in two additional identities: a knight in armor challenged to a joust and a sea captain captured by pirates. Heller's ( Mathilda the Dream Bear ; The Monster in the Cave ) chipper narrative and comical, radiant watercolor and black-pen art will endear his porcine hero to youngsters. Easy-to-manage sentences and a large typeface make this a good pick for beginning readers. Ages 3-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

PreSchool-Grade 2-Bored little Woody, a pig, wishes on a dandelion that he were doing "something really exciting." Suddenly plummeting through the air, he realizes he has gotten hold of some powerful magic, and each of the adventures that follow is more harrowing than the last. Running for a touchdown, he's clobbered by three hogs. As a knight in shining armor, he's quickly dispatched in a joust. And, as a sea captain, he's forced by pirates to walk the plank. When his mother discovers him sitting in the meadow, she wonders why he couldn't "think of anything exciting to do." A young audience will neither enjoy these doomed escapades nor identify with a dreamer who always casts himself as the chump. Heller's accompanying illustrations are garish and unappealing.
Meg Stackpole, Rye Free Reading Room, NY
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.