No! Said Joe - Hardcover

When Joe flatly refuses to go shopping with his parents, they suggest some alternate destinations--a visit to a wicked witch, perhaps ("She'll make you eat disgusting things, / Like snake and spider stew, / Or slug and worm spaghetti-- / Is that all right with you?"), or a giant, or a haunted house. Joe is delighted with these possibilities, and Prater wrings every drop of visual humor from his juxtaposition of the parents' (tongue-in-cheek) threats with the benign creatures the boy imagines. Both witch and giant, for example, look suspiciously like cheerful grandparents, with the "dreadful" giant decked out in Fair Isle vest and spectacles. In the end, their strategy thwarted, Joe's parents deliver an ultimatum that finally lights a fire under the obstinate tot. Prater is tuned in to the workings of the preschool mind, and in his chipper pen-and-wash sketches and rhyming text, harried parents will recognize the desperate measures sometimes necessary to mobilize an ornery child. Ages 3-up.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.