From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2. Each night as an old woman prepares dinner, she puts vegetable peelings in a slop bucket and asks her husband to dump the bucket over the stone fence. Then one night a tiny man appears and asks the man to stop pouring the slops down his chimney. Through magic, the old man is able to see the tiny cottage and the tiny family who live there. The old woman then suggests they build a back door to their house. This compromise works well for both parties and each night the elderly couple find a gold coin left by the wee folk. MacDonald's retelling is the best thing about this book. The text is immensely suited for telling aloud and uses repetition in a way that also makes it suitable as a participation story. The language is simple with a pleasant cadence. Sources are cited. While Davis's full-page illustrations convey the action and are large enough for group sharing, the colors are overworked and the rendering is amateurish. The artist uses a combination of watercolor washes and acrylic paint and the two media seem to be at odds with one another, for the milky quality of the acrylic paints counteracts the transparent glow of the watercolors. The rendering of the characters and settings is possibly intended to look naive but merely ends up looking stilted. Although the pictures are a weakness here, the story should appeal to those looking for a new title to tell during storytime.?Denise Anton Wright, Illinois State University, Normal
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Ingram
What's a wee woman and wee man to do when vegetable peelings and dishwater pour down their wee chimney? Every evening, an old man and woman finish their dinner and throw their slops over the garden fence, not knowing that the wee couple lives below. When the wee man shows them the effect of their slops on his house, they devise an ecological solution to the problem. Full color.
