Ten Redneck Babies: A Southern Counting Book

by Arcadia Publishing

Overview

From Moon Pies to magnolias and kudzu to catfish, these diapered dynamos get into all kinds of down-home trouble.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781589802322
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	09/30/2004
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	11.00(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.02(d)
Age Range:	3 - 5 Years

About the Author

A humorist, cartoonist, speaker, and writer, David Davis is a Texas native with a gift for storytelling. Davis's colorful characters come to life in his lively and timeless stories. Though most of his picture books are set in the South, they transcend the regional label. After time in the banking industry, he began a career as a political cartoonist. In the mid 1980s, he started working as a freelance humorist. Davis's satirical poem "Redneck Night Before Christmas" attracted the attention of Pelican and led to the publication of his first book. His subsequent books, filled with humor, flair, and catchy language, are a tremendous success. Ten Redneck Babies: A Southern Counting Book and Jazz Cats were both named to the Children's Choice Top 100 List. Jazz Cats was a finalist for the Texas Golden Spur Award and is an Accelerated Reader Program selection. Texas Mother Goose and Texas Aesop's Fables were named to syndicated columnist Glenn Dromgoole's yearly Top Ten Texas Books, and Librarian's Night Before Christmas struck a chord with hard-working librarians everywhere. In addition to his books, Davis's artwork, cartoons, poems, and short stories are featured in various publications across the country. His political cartoons won an award from the Mississippi Press Association. He is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and is in demand as a speaker and presenter at educational conferences, libraries, and schools. Davis lives in Fort Worth, Texas.

Editorial Reviews

While marching readers back and forth between the numbers 10 and one, Davis (Redneck Night Before Christmas) and Ward also celebrate (or introduce, in the case of Yankee readers) mainstays of Southern life, such as Moon Pies, grits, kudzu and chiggers. The book kicks off with an outing to town (bumper stickers on the family's van testify to the driver's patriotism and NASCAR devotion), but the rest of the couplets and pictures are mostly devoted to the sibling babies' (some crawling, some toddling) gentle mischief as they scamper in and around their rural home, clad in diapers or overalls: "6 redneck babies cotton pickin'-/ One ate a lunch of crisp fried chicken." The rhymes drawl but never quite sing, and Ward's watercolors, while sunny in tone and hues, resemble static greeting card illustrations. Because the characters' lives look appealingly bucolic rather than hardscrabble, children unacquainted with the meaning of "redneck" will probably come away thinking that it's just another way of referring to a Southern farm family. Whether that's good or bad is for grown-ups to decide. Ages 5-8. (Nov.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Counting down from ten and then back up again, Southern babies walk, crawl, and roll through this numbering tale. Whether eating peanut patties, frolicking in the kudzu, or taking a bath in washbasins in the yard, these redneck babies (by virtue of the title, they're all white) are having fun. Wacky rhyming verses filled with the distinctive Southern vernacular provide a unique take on the familiar format: "4 redneck babies buttering grits. . . ." While mostly good-natured, occasional passages fall into unflattering stereotypes of Southern life, detracting from the overall tone of the story. Humorous paintings filled with sun-kissed babies in a variety of settings, offer another view of an often disparaged way of life. An occasional misstep only minimally detracts from this feel-good tale. Loaded with Southern charm. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews