To Market, To Market

ANNOTATION

Starting with the nursery rhyme about buying a fat pig at market, this tale goes on to describe a series of unruly animals that run amok, evading capture and preventing the narrator from cooking lunch.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Anne Miranda’s inventive twist on a classic rhyme tells what happens after a shopper goes "to market, to market, to buy a fat pig." Back home the pig promptly escapes, and soon the pig’s in the kitchen, the lamb’s on the bed, the cow’s on the couch--and the rest of the animals are wreaking havoc throughout the house.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

"In this clever riff on the old nursery rhyme, a plump matron makes a series of increasingly calamitous purchases of animals at the supermarket. This is one market trip children will wish to take again and again," PW said. Ages 5-8. (Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Children's Literature - Dori Butler

What happens when a poor elderly woman takes a trip to the market? Chaos reigns on her home! She buys a plump goose and the hen's on the loose. She buys a live trout and the goose is let out. On and on it goes until the woman is hungry and cranky and doesn't know what to do. The woman and the items from the market all appear in color, but the backgrounds are black and white, which gives the book a unique look. Children will love this hilarious take-off on the familiar rhyme.

Children's Literature - Jan Lieberman

Bravo to Janet Stevens for her sparkling and hilarious pictures for Anne Miranda's comic version of To Market, To Market. Animals run amok creating chaos in the once peaceful home of a disheveled shopper who is defenseless, distraught and disgraced by her newfound menagerie. "The PIG's in the kitchen. The LAMB's on the bed. The COW's on the couch. There's a DUCK on my head!" What to do? Take my advice: buy the book, but be sure to remove the jacket to enjoy the unusual picture on the cover. A jumping, jiving book!

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 3What begins with the traditional serene nursery rhyme turns into a slapstick excursion filled with mishap and mayhem. A "fat pig" is not enough for this ambitious shopper. The elderly woman makes return trips to the market for a hen, trout, lamb, cow, duck, and goat. While she is acquiring more, her earlier purchases are wreaking havoc. Patterned, staccato verses tell the zany tale, but it is Stevens's wonderfully wild illustrations that bring it to life. The conventional home's interior is pictured in flat gray charcoal tones. The woman and her animals are colorful, oversized figures that burst off the pages. The collage technique allows for the contrasting colors and styles that magnify the uncontained boisterous fun of this very imaginative book. Visual format, repetition, and rhyme make this title an ideal choice for sharing aloud. It could also be used as a springboard for writing projects as children start with a familiar rhyme and make it their own. All-in-all, a delightful, albeit raucous, romp.Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI

Kirkus Reviews

A marketing trip from Miranda (Glad Monster, Sad Monster, p. 1309) that jiggity jigs off in time-honored nursery-rhyme fashion, but almost immediately derails into well-charted chaos. The foodstuffs—the fat pig, the red hen, the plump goose, the pea pods, peppers, garlic, and spice—are wholly reasonable in light of the author's mention of shopping at traditional Spanish mercados, which stock live animals and vegetables. Stevens transfers the action to a standard American supermarket and a standard American kitchen, bringing hilarity to scenes that combine acrylics, oil pastels, and colored pencil with photo and fabric collage elements. The result is increasing frazzlement for the shopper, an older woman wearing spectacles, hat, and purple pumps (one of which is consumed by her groceries). It's back to market one last time for ingredients for the hot vegetable soup she prepares for the whole bunch. True, her kitchen's trashed and she probably won't find a welcome mat at her supermarket hereafter, but all's well that ends well—at least while the soup's on.