Squash It!: A true and ridiculous tale
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The King of Spain's fondness for a louse that bit him leads to good fortune for a clever peasant.Publishers WeeklyElaborating on "The Flea" in Ruth Sawyer's Picture Tales from Spain, Kimmel weaves a hilariously tall tale about friendships between men and bugs. A tiny louse bites the king of Spain, who refuses to squash it ("It has royal blood in its veins," says the king. "We must treat it with respect"). The king makes a favorite pet of it, and the louse reaches the size of a horse before it dies. The mourning king has it made into a guitar, proclaiming that anyone guessing what the instrument is made of can marry one of his daughters. A clever peasant befriends a grasshopper, a beetle and a flea who help him solve the riddle. But he is already married, so he chooses a strong mule and riches instead of a princess and returns to his wife and children. Crisp, comical prose assures a laugh on every page: "My dog and I were going to Madrid to see the sights," complains the flea to the peasant. "I fell off and got left behind." Rayevsky's (Three Sacks of Truth) illustrations seem effortless and full of brio. The distorted, jolly characters are heavily tinted with blocks of solid color: beards are blue, soup is yellow, horses are red. Patches of uncolored paper peek out everywhere, as if the paint had been laid down by a tipsy amateur, but the effect is both balanced and dramatic. A nonsense tale with bite. Ages 5-8. (Apr.)
\ Publishers Weekly\ - Publisher's Weekly\ Elaborating on "The Flea" in Ruth Sawyer's Picture Tales from Spain, Kimmel weaves a hilariously tall tale about friendships between men and bugs. A tiny louse bites the king of Spain, who refuses to squash it ("It has royal blood in its veins," says the king. "We must treat it with respect"). The king makes a favorite pet of it, and the louse reaches the size of a horse before it dies. The mourning king has it made into a guitar, proclaiming that anyone guessing what the instrument is made of can marry one of his daughters. A clever peasant befriends a grasshopper, a beetle and a flea who help him solve the riddle. But he is already married, so he chooses a strong mule and riches instead of a princess and returns to his wife and children. Crisp, comical prose assures a laugh on every page: "My dog and I were going to Madrid to see the sights," complains the flea to the peasant. "I fell off and got left behind." Rayevsky's (Three Sacks of Truth) illustrations seem effortless and full of brio. The distorted, jolly characters are heavily tinted with blocks of solid color: beards are blue, soup is yellow, horses are red. Patches of uncolored paper peek out everywhere, as if the paint had been laid down by a tipsy amateur, but the effect is both balanced and dramatic. A nonsense tale with bite. Ages 5-8. (Apr.)\ \ \ \ \ School Library JournalK-Gr 4When a head louse bites a king, the insect is proclaimed to have royal blood, and the monarch commands that it should be fed and protected. When the creature dies, a guitar is fashioned from its carcass, and the king, who loves a riddle, proposes a contest. The person who can correctly identify the guitar's material may marry the princess. A poor peasant thinks perhaps this will be a way to make his fortune. On his way to the king, he accumulates three insects: a grasshopper, a beetle, and a flea, all of whom aid him in his quest to provide the correct answer. Since the peasant is already married, he is rewarded with a mule loaded with riches. The illustrations for this broad comedy are bold and crude. Rayevsky's palette is intense, saturated, flat, and in mostly primary colors. The cartoonlike characters are outlined with thick black line. Kimmel attributes this story to one found in Ruth Sawyer's Picture Tales from Spain (Lippincott, 1936; o.p.), which features a flea instead of a louse. Though Kimmel has tightened it considerably, the text is still long. In the process, some charming elements have been eliminated. For telling to school children who endure regular head checks, librarians with the Sawyer version will do well to stick with the original and change the flea to a louse.Kate McClelland, Perrot Memorial Library, Greenwich, CT\ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsA humorous adaptation of a Spanish story similar to Verna Aardema's retelling of The Riddle of the Drum (1978, o.p.), although Kimmel (Onions and Garlic, 1996, etc.) cites Ruth Sawyer's Picture Tales from Spain as his source.\ The king of Spain insists that a louse that has bitten him must be treated royally, since it now has royal blood. The indulged insect grows to an enormous size, and when it dies, the king secretly has a guitar fashioned from its carcass. He invites all and sundry to guess the marvelous substance of which his guitar is made, offering marriage to one of his daughters as the prize. A peasant ventures to Madrid to try his luck, and a flea he has befriended solves the mystery. Each of the three princesses, horrified at the prospect of having to marry the peasant, bribes him not to choose her, and he departs with immense treasure and a strong mule (more valuable than a lazy princess). The flea remains at court, working his way up the ranks until he can bite the king. Kimmel's retelling, with judiciously chosen details, is good for reading aloud to kids who relish a bit of grossness in their story- hour diet. Rayevsky's boldly outlined illustrations are as earthy as the tale.\ \ \
