Poppa's New Pants - Hardcover

Kindergarten-Grade 2?Poppa buys a new pair of "red gambler's plaid" pants that are six inches too long. Grandma Tiny, Big Mama, and Aunt Viney are too tired to alter them but in the night, each regrets her refusal to help him and gets up to hem the pants. Grandson George, sleeping in the kitchen because the visiting relatives have his room, is frightened by the ghostly apparitions who make snipping noises. In the morning the mystery is solved. Poppa has a pair of thrice altered pants that end at his knees. The full-color paintings show a loving African American family in a rural setting. Some of the pictures are quite expressive. For example, Big Mama and Aunt Viney squeezing and kissing George shows a squirming little boy enduring "a sea of wet sloppy kisses," and there is an appropriately spooky, uneasy look as he prepares for sleeping in the kitchen. However, the youngster's first-person narration isn't strong enough to make this low-key story exciting. Even the scenes with the white shapes sneaking into the kitchen lack tension. The whole, while conversationally realistic, has a pedestrian tone. There are also a few gaps in logic. Despite a full moon, it is unlikely that all the sewing could be accomplished without artificial light and George is given the shortened pants to wear as knickers without any alteration to fit his smaller waist and hips. An adequate but secondary purchase.?Karen James, Louisville Free Public Library, KY
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 5^-8. Young George and his grandfather, Poppa, come home from the general store with everything on Grandma Tiny's list as well as a pair of pants for Poppa. The pants are six inches too long, but Grandma, Big Mama, and Aunt Viney are just too tired to hem them. That night George is awakened three times by what he thinks are ghostly visitations. In the morning, he finds out who the "ghosts" really were: it seems all three women, reflecting on their affection for Poppa, got up during the night and hemmed the new pants. Now too short for a laughing Poppa, the pants go to George, who gets to wear them to church. Evoking a not-too-distant past, Ward's realistic watercolor depictions of this loving African American family combine beautifully with Medearis' engaging text. Eliciting the warmth of a family anecdote often told, the story will easily lend itself to reading or telling aloud. Janice Del Negro