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PRESCHOOL
Soontornvat, Christina

The Ramble Shamble Children

32 pp. | Penguin/Paulsen | March, 2021 | Trade ISBN 978-0-399-17632-6 $17.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-0-399-54582-5 $10.99
(1) PS Illustrated by Lauren Castillo. "Down the mountain, across the creek, past the last curve in the road, five children lived together in a ramble shamble house." From this first welcoming sentence we know we're in classic picture book territory--words and rhythms that taste just right and the ever-appealing theme of children in charge, with no adults on the scene. The family is self-sufficient. Merra, Finn, Locky, and Roozle garden and tend chickens. Baby Jory "looked after the mud." Trouble looms when the children discover a photo of a stately home and decide to "proper up" their own dilapidated house and garden: installing a chandelier, replacing the chicken coop with a Victorian dollhouse and the carrot crop with roses. It turns out that a propered-up environment doesn't work for chickens or for babies. (Jory is particularly adversely affected, as he loses his beloved mud puddle.) After a brief dark night of the soul, the family sees the error of its ways and sensibly re-establishes its comfortable, chaotic, creative world. The joyful energy of this simple story is amplified by glowing pictures showing a multiethnic group of sturdy children against impressionistic, light-infused backgrounds of mountain, meadow, and mud.
Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2021

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