Cover Image

Buttons

by Cole, Brock.

Format: Print Book 2000
Availability: Available at 2 Libraries 2 of 2 copies

Available (2)
Location Collection Call #
Community Library of Allegheny Valley - Harrison Picture Books Je C
Location  Community Library of Allegheny Valley - Harrison
 
Collection  Picture Books
 
Call Number  Je C
 
 
Sewickley Public Library Juvenile Picture Books J E COL
Location  Sewickley Public Library
 
Collection  Juvenile Picture Books
 
Call Number  J E COL
 
 

Summary
Brock Cole's first picture book in nearly ten years

Once there was an old man who ate so much his britches burst and his buttons popped one, two, three, into the fire. "Wife! Wife!" he cried. "We are undone! My britches have burst and my buttons are burnt, every one!

After putting her husband to bed, the wife enlists the aid of her three daughters in replacing their father's buttons. The eldest promises to find a rich man who will give her buttons in exchange for her hand in marriage. The second daughter decides to join the army for the sake of the buttons on a soldier's uniform. And the youngest is going to run through the meadows with her apron held out before her, hoping to catch a few buttons falling from the sky. Which of these young ladies will succeed in restoring the family fortunes? The answer is the essential and satisfying stuff of fairy tales. Brock Cole's whimsical prose and pictures make this original story feel like a hundred-year-old classic.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "Ages 5^-8. Cole's range, empathy, and imagination continue to astonish. This puckishly perfect picture book immediately insinuates itself into the heart. A very well fed paterfamilias bursts his buttons, and they pop into the fire. Literally undone, he takes to his bed, and his wife calls on their three daughters. The eldest decides to walk upon the Palace Bridge in her finest finery so that a rich man will fall in love with her and give her buttons. The second daughter vows to join the army, for everyone knows soldiers' uniforms have buttons to spare. The youngest, after much thought, decides to run about the meadow with her apron open, the better to catch buttons that fall from the sky. The eldest is set upon and tossed into the river, from which she's rescued by a bargeman whom she marries. The second daughter, sent to the front, rescues a young ensign and marries him. The youngest daughter, who has charmed a cowherd, is the one who actually manages to bring home the buttons, but perhaps not in the way she expected. It all ends with their wedding feast: the elder sisters return with spouses (and a babe), and the father neatly done up with a set of slightly used buttons. The cowherd mysteriously lacks same, but it is "a small fault and seems to run in the family." The language sparkles and begs to be read aloud. Adults will cheer the exquisitely detailed, vivacious line that delineates the characters in their vaguely eighteenth-century dress; children will find that the translucent color washes depict silks and water, ships and castles, battles and feasts with equal vibrancy. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "A series of farcical mishaps steadily ups the comedy in Cole's (Alpha and the Dirty Baby) brightly polished romp. After their portly father eats so much that his britches burst and his buttons fly into the fire, three daughters concoct plans to find replacements. Setting off to snare a man who will fall in love with her and give her his buttons, the eldest encounters a "band of ruffians" who tip her over the balustrade of a bridge. She ends up marrying the handsome bargee who rescues her and realizes only much later that she has forgotten to ask for even one button ("She decided she would send her father a postcard instead"). The second girl disguises herself as a man and joins the army, intending to give her father the gold buttons from her new uniform. But her regiment is whisked off to battle, and when a brave young ensign is wounded, she tears off her jacket to make bandages ("Many buttons were lost and destroyed in the process, but who could think of buttons at a time like this?"). It falls to the youngest daughter to save the day, although her plan is the most harebrained of them all. Busy, hyperbolic pictures limn an appealing old-world setting. In his words and pictures, Cole treats the ridiculous characters with affection, not mockery, inviting readers into the story to laugh right along with them. Ages 5-up. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Fathers and daughters -- Fiction.
Humorous stories.
Publisher New York :Farrar Straus Giroux,2000
Edition 1st ed.
Language English
Description 1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 25 x 27 cm
ISBN 0374310017
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