Gullible Gus

by Maxine Rose Schur, Andrew Glass (Illustrator)

Overview

Poor Gus! He's so gullible, he believes everything people tell him. Everything! The other cowboys feed him lies and tall tales - just to see if he'll swallow their silly stories. Their teasing makes him sadder than dry soup. But luckily, Doc Hickory knows a cure for gullibility, and it starts with a visit to Fibrock, a town full of liars. Can the biggest fibber in Fibrock teach Gus the difference between fact and falsehood? Maybe it's not always clear which is which...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781952209284
Publisher:	Lawley Enterprises LLC
Publication date:	11/17/2020
Pages:	52
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.25(d)
Age Range:	7 - 12 Years

About the Author

Maxine Rose Schur is an award-winning travel journalist and the author of several books for both children and adults. As the recipient of the Joan G. Sugarman Award given by the Washington Independent Writer's Legal and Educational Fund, Ms Schur was the Baker-Nord Guest Lecturer on Writing in the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. Her evocative rendering of daily life in an Ethiopian village Day of Delight won the Parent's Choice Award and was read by Gregory Hines on National Public Radio and recorded on CD. Maxine Rose Schur's non-fiction for adults includes the books, The Reading Woman, Enchanted Islands: Voices and Visions from the Caribbean and Solo Passages, a collection of women's diary writings accompanied by a CD of classical music. Maxine Rose Schur began her career as a documentary and feature film editor for the New Zealand National Film Unit and later became a full-time writer and editor for Addison-Wesley publishing. She has also written and edited for Hampton Brown, Scholastic, Houghton-Mifflin, Harcourt Brace, The American Girl's Collection, Radio New Zealand and the BBC. Ms. Schur was the feature writer on art and culture for the magazine, Caribbean Travel & Life. Her award-winning travel essays have appeared in numerous publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, Américas, The Los Angeles Times, Escape, Northwest Airlines World Traveler, Traveller (U.K.) , Insight Guides and Salon.com. Her essays have also appeared in Traveler's Tales: anthologies published by O'Reilly and Associates, Wanderlust: Real-Life Tales of Adventure and Romance published by Random House, Paris in Mind by Vintage Books, Random House and The Kindness of Strangers published by Lonely Planet. Ms. Schur has twice won the Lowell Thomas Award by the Society of American Travel Writers for excellence in adventure travel journalism. Her latest book is the travel memoir, Places in Time which was named the best travel book by the North American Travel Journalists Association and took the Gold Award for Best Book by the Society of American Travel Writers. Maxine Rose Schur's most recent book is Marielle in Paris, which tells of the high-flying adventure of a fashion-designer mouse. A celebration of the City of Light, Marielle in Paris is beautifully illustrated by Jeanne de Sainte-Marie.

Editorial Reviews

"This darn good yarn will have kids galloping through the pages." - Kirkus review

From the Publisher

Gr 2–5—Seeking a cure for his acute gullibility, Gus the Cowboy follows his doctor's orders and embarks on a journey to Fibrock, where he meets up with Hokum Malarkey, the biggest liar in the universe. Mr. Malarkey takes Gus's money and relates three tall tales to see if he can detect a lie. The first tale involves Dr. Ducknoise, a flimflam man who sells the townsfolk of Flapjack some Smart Syrup. No one listens to the instructions to take only one drop a night. Trying to outsmart one another, the townsfolk finish off a year's supply of Smart Syrup in just three days. Now everyone is too smart for their own good and nothing gets done anymore. It takes Dumb Drops, again sold by Dr. Ducknoise, and a mule to set the town straight. The two other tales involve unpleasant and irritable Cantankerous Clem and a confused young woman named Backwards Hannah. The stories are filled with exaggeration and alliteration. A Western twang is used to create mood. Readers will laugh out loud and share passages with friends. Teachers might want to use the stories as part of a writing exercise for a tall-tale unit or reader's theater presentation. Glass's bright oil crayon cartoons fit the exaggerated storytelling style to a tee. This appealing chapter book for competent readers will have kids laughing while learning about the genre.—Nancy Baumann, Indian Paintbrush Elementary, Laramie, WY

School Library Journal

Cowboy Gus is sweet but naive. He's often teased and tricked, which makes him sad. Doc Hickory sends him to the town of Fibrock, where he must find the biggest liar to tell him the tallest of tall tales, thereby teaching Gus how to distinguish flimflam from truth. The grand liar, Hokum Malarkey, is happy to spin stories on top of tales. He tells Gus of outlandish people like Cantankerous Clem, whose only friend is a parlor chair, and Backwards Hannah, who, as sheriff, rounds up criminals before they commit crimes. By story's end Gus, who thought he had it all figured out, discovers that there is a blurry line between truth and fiction. The rollicking text is stuffed with such snappy words as whim-wham, chuckleheads and taradiddle. With hues of brown, orange and blue, Glass's comical art is befittingly energetic and folksy. One can't believe everything one is told or reads, but this darn good yarn will have kids galloping through the pages of this middle reader. (Fiction. 6-10)

Kirkus Reviews