Review by Booklist Review
The little shepherd in the hoodie sweatshirt who starred in Betsy Who Cried Wolf! (2002) makes another appearance in this loopy, laugh-aloud adventure. Traditional story elements frame the tale: Betsy is asked to carry a basket of baked goods to her grandmother. She responsibly brings her sheep along, with the help of her unlikely co-shepherd, Zimmo the wolf, who disappears along the way. Betsy has always known that wolves aren't good for grandmas. Is Zimmo up to no good? After journeying through mountains and mudslides, Betsy finally reaches her grandmother and finds her alive and well, entertaining surprise guests at a full-swing party. Levine's well-paced, straightforward storytelling plays nicely against the broad comedy in Nash's color-washed ink drawings, which are filled with comics-style speech balloons printed with asides and complaints from the sheep ( My wool is itchy ). Full of action, zaniness, and a few meta-moments in which characters crawl out of the story, this makes a good companion to David Wiesner's similarly fractured The Three Pigs (2001).--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this uproarious adaptation, a companion to Betsy Who Cried Wolf! Betsy, along with her flock of opinionated sheep, sets out to bring cupcakes to Grandma. Betsy also brings fellow shepherd Zimmo the wolf, ignoring her friends' warnings. But when Zimmo disappears, Betsy begins to lose faith in her friend and in her ability to lead the talkative, troublesome sheep. Nash and Levine's twist ending ensures a happy ending, and the sheep's speech bubble cacophony ("The moral is: Wolves are good for grandmas." "Some wolves are grandmas." "Some books never end") provides an entertaining backdrop to a surprisingly tense story. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-4-Betsy, the trustworthy shepherd introduced in Betsy Who Cried Wolf (HarperCollins, 2002), and Zimmo, the wolf who reinvented himself after demonstrating his predilection for herding sheep instead of eating them, are together again. It is Betsy's birthday, and she is allowed to go to her grandmother's house by herself to deliver cupcakes. She decides to take the sheep, and Zimmo begs to come along. Betsy concedes, but her instincts warn her that wolves and grandmas don't mix. When Zimmo runs ahead, suspicions surge, and she lets her fears get the best of her. The journey becomes an uphill climb in the mud for Betsy with her herd slipping and sliding, but ends in a sweet surprise. Nash's illustrations, steeped in comic tradition but heavily crosshatched, exhibit realism reminiscent of David Macaulay's work. The sheep sport backpacks and model an assortment of fashion accessories-hats, boots, even guitars. The wry humor of the herd, who crack jokes and banter in speech bubbles alongside the narrative, will appeal to children and lends comic relief to the story of a difficult journey. Sheep act like birds (and people), wolves act like people (and grandmas), and there's even a joke that Betsy's birthday wish is to become a sheep someday, implying a free-to-be-you-an-me vision of identity and parodying the heavily analyzed wolf-dressed-as-grandmother motif of the original tale.-Sara Lissa Paulson, American Sign Language and English Lower School PS 347, New York City (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Betsy (see the team's previous Betsy Who Cried Wolf) is still a shepherd; Zimmo, her partner in watching the sheep, is still a wolf, though in his vest and trousers, he looks more like a benevolent uncle. Even so, when Betsy takes cupcakes to Grandma, she at first tells him to stay home ("Wolves aren't good for grandmas") before relenting ("Betsy thought about it. Zimmo had never hurt a person or a sheep"). And the sheep are coming, too ("They'll enjoy the walk"). So they all set out, ignoring the warnings of a farmer and hunter, gathering daisies, trying to keep track of ten sheep whose speech-bubble chatter includes amusingly altered bits of the old story (Grandmas "are long in the tooth, the better to chew," while wolves "have long teeth. They look a lot like grandmas!"). Presently Zimmo scoots ahead, leaving Betsy to struggle with the increasingly rowdy herd and wonder about his intentions. But all ends happily, with a swift segue to another classic conclusion: a surprise birthday party for Betsy at Grandma's. Nash stages the shenanigans in an attractive country landscape, supporting Levine's light tone with comical pen drawings of the round-faced, energetic Betsy in the eponymous hoodie and the ten wayward sheep, differentiated by their headgear and other paraphernalia. Good read-aloud fun. joanna rudge long (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Betsy Who Cried Wolf! (2003), but he still masterfully portrays the personalities of each sheep. Tongue-in-cheek funny, this is sure to find a place alongside Betsy's earlier escapade. (Picture book. 4-8)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
