The Magic Cornfield - Hardcover

Grade 1-3?Bottom, a rag doll with an ass's head (like his Shakespearean namesake), invites his cousin Tottem to celebrate his 100th birthday in Minneapolis. Tottem sets out from New York, but his car gives out after two hours and he walks into a magic cornfield looking for help. He finds a "Traveling Mailbox" and a sign promising that all messages will be transferred onto postcards and delivered. Thus the conceit: Tottem's travels through the fantasy world of the cornfield are chronicled by the mailbox's postcards. Each double-page spread has a hand-lettered message placed opposite the full-color photo on the front of the postcard. The textual content (e.g., a reference to a duck the doll meets along the way) determines the stamps and point of origin of the card (stamps of mallards, Audubon, St. Francis, and cancellation from Bird-in-Hand, PA). Collages, posed dolls, and odd assemblages inventively connect the picture to the words in the text. Tottem remains trapped in the corn, it is later revealed, because he believes in magic. He misses Bottom's birthday, but an obliging angel flies him to the edge of the field about four months later. Adult readers will be amused and/or puzzled by the clever connections that promise a meaning not explicitly delivered. Children who demand that their stories make sense will be in for some frustration.?Patricia Lothrop-Green, St. George's School, Newport, RI
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.