What Really Happened to Humpty?

by Jeanie Franz Ransom, Stephen Axelsen (Illustrator)

Overview

A scrambled mess . . .

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Or—as his brother Detective Joe Dumpty thinks—was he pushed? This case isn't all it's cracked up to be. Suspects are plenty (as are the puns) in this scrambled story of nursery rhyme noir. Was it Little Miss Muffet? There's something not right about her tuffet. Or could it have been Chicken Little, who's always been a little cagey? Or was it the Big Bad Wolf, who's got a rap sheet as long as a moonless night? Joe's on the beat and determined to find the truth.

Readers of all ages will delight in the word play and hilarious illustrations in this mystery of what really happened to Humpty Dumpty on that fateful day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580893916
Publisher:	Charlesbridge
Publication date:	07/01/2010
Series:	Nursery-Rhyme Mysteries , #1
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	409,315
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 10.80(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Jeanie Franz Ransom is the author of several books, including WHAT PARENTS DO WHEN YOU'RE NOT HOME and GRANDMA U. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Editorial Reviews

Clever wordplay marks Ransom's (What Do Your Parents Do? [When You're Not Home]) fast-paced, noir-styled offering. Detective Joe Dumpty unravels the real reason his brother, Humpty, took a spill, interviewing characters that hail from the pages of Mother Goose (she puts in an appearance, too). The puns, a little more subtle than in similar stories, are on target for the suggested audience, e.g., “I looked at my brother. He wasn't moving. Whoever did this was gonna fry!” Axelsen (the Piccolo and Annabelle series) provides plenty of humor with busy cartoon illustrations, many of them inset with boxed vignettes; Chicken Little and her offspring, for example, wear crash helmets and reside in a fortified bunker. The noir conventions add a layer of sophistication to the nursery-rhyme setting, ratcheting up the book's appeal for primary-grade readers.

—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Clever wordplay marks Ransom's (What Do Your Parents Do? [When You're Not Home]) fast-paced, noir-styled offering. Detective Joe Dumpty unravels the real reason his brother, Humpty, took a spill, interviewing characters that hail from the pages of Mother Goose (she puts in an appearance, too). The puns, a little more subtle than in similar stories, are on target for the suggested audience, e.g., "I looked at my brother. He wasn't moving. Whoever did this was gonna fry!" Axelsen (the Piccolo and Annabelle series) provides plenty of humor with busy cartoon illustrations, many of them inset with boxed vignettes; Chicken Little and her offspring, for example, wear crash helmets and reside in a fortified bunker. The noir conventions add a layer of sophistication to the nursery-rhyme setting, ratcheting up the book's appeal for primary-grade readers. Ages 6-9. (Feb.)

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Publishers Weekly

Gr 1-4

When Humpty falls off the wall, his brother Joe, a detective in Mother Gooseland, is convinced that he was pushed. Thus begins the unraveling of the mystery of who did the dastardly deed. All of the characters use cell phones and some drive cars in this long and complicated tale. There are a lot of egg jokes, and wordplay abounds. In the end, Little Miss Muffet and the Big Bad Wolf go off to jail for their crime. Now Joe Dumpty has more work to do as the Dish just ran away with the Spoon and Bo Peep's sheep are roaming. The illustrations are done in watercolor, with pen and ink. The drawings are various sizes and often there are multiple frames per page. Pictures are detailed, and many contain speech balloons. This is a text-heavy story that will tickle the funny bone of readers old enough to get the jokes.-Ieva Bates, Ann Arbor District Library, MI

School Library Journal

Humpty Dumpty's hard-boiled brother tackles the mystery of his infamous fall. In a big gold trench coat and matching fedora, private eye Joe Dumpty makes a bold assertion-"Humpty Dumpty was pushed"-and sets out to crack the case, supported by police Chief (Mother) Goose. His droll investigation covers a rogue's gallery of nursery-rhyme characters. Miss Muffet proves a tough cookie; Joe finds a key piece of evidence under her tuffet. Other suspects include Goldilocks (who's house-sitting for the Three Bears and answers the door in pajamas and bedhead), a Zoot-suited Wolf, a skittish Chicken Little and the bickering Three Little Pigs. Ransom's execution of her delicious premise is scattershot, but with many more hits than misses, and her text is substantial, appropriate for her target school-age audience. Axelsen's watercolor-cum-pen-and-ink illustrations offer additional laughs and surprises. While done with a bit more polish and 'tude by Margie Palatini and Richard Egieski in 2001's The Web Files, this nursery-rhyme caper will please. (Picture book. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews