CM Magazine: Mortimer Mooner Makes Lunch

________________ CM . . . . Volume I Number IV . . . . July 7, 1995

Mortimer Mooner Makes Lunch
Edwards, Frank B. Illustrated by John Bianchi
Kingston: Bungalo Books
24pp, paper, $4.95

Preschool - grade 3 / Ages 4 - 8
Review by Dave Jenkinson

Preschoolers and early-year students get another amusing opportunity to meet the Mooner family as author Edwards and illustrator Bianchi revisit this zany swine household.

On a bright summer morning, Mortimer awakens his father by shouting, "You're late. . . . You have TEN minutes to catch your bus." Rushing to the shower, Father Mooner asks Mortimer to make him a lunch. As Mortimer's father frantically completes his ablutions and dresses, Mortimer counts down the minutes while adding more and more items to his father's increasingly large lunch. At "blast-off" time, Father Mooner trips over the morning newspaper while rushing out and trips down the stairs. Sharp-eyed readers will be able to predict the story's climax if they notice that the scattered newspaper is labelled "Saturday Times." Happily, father and son decide to make a picnic out of the huge, but now unneeded, lunch.

In this comedy collaboration, Edwards's text plays the straight man while Bianchi's cartoon-like illustrations get the laughs. For example, when Edward writes that Father Mooner "combed his hair," Bianchi shows him doing exactly that: combing the one solitary hair on his head.

Eagle-eyed readers or attentive listeners will likely catch that either the illustrations or the text describing dad's activities for minutes 4 and 3 seem to be reversed, as the text and illustrations don't match. Nonetheless, a fun read-to or early reading book!

Recommended.

Dave Jenkinson teaches courses in children's and Young Adult literature in the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - JULY 7, 1995.