Mud by Mary Lyn Ray, Lauren Stringer (Illustrator)

From the Publisher

One night it happens. Maybe it begins in the warmth of the day, but it’s always at night that it happens. Earth comes unfrozen, and then there is . . . MUD! This ode to muddy hands and feet, brown earth, and new grass celebrates the joy of mud and the coming of spring. “Wallow in it.”—Kirkus Reviews

Publishers Weekly

The eye-catching cover of this cheerful homage to the coming of spring features a splendid close-up of chubby toddler feet happily stuck in "gooey, gloppy, mucky,/ magnificent mud." "One night it happens," Ray (Pumpkins; Shaker Boy) begins mysteriously. "...Someone opening/ a door will notice:/ earth comes unfrozen." Stringer, in her auspicious picture book debut, portrays a solitary child viewing the brown leaves that "loosen/ from their frozen drifts and run/ rattling in the flapping wind," then playing in a gigantic mud puddle ("Stir it. Stick it./ Dig it. Dance it"). The reader sees the child's yellow boots and red socks give way to muddy toes and a single, full-length portrait of the child almost flying through the inviting springtime air. The bold acrylic paintings burst from their full-bleed spreads like tulips, with skewed perspectives and scalloped, abstract designs representing the grass and clouds. If not in the same league as e.e. cummings's famous "mudluscious" tribute to spring, Ray's brief poem nevertheless captures the joy of seeing winter "Squish Squck Sop Splat Slurp/ melt in mud./ Happy mud." Ages 3-8. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Steve Lavis looks at animals foreign and domestic with two Peek-Through Board Books. On the Farm follows the wooly sheep as he searches out who has eaten its breakfast. As each page is turned, more animals become visible through the die-cut spaces. The culprits are found behind the tractor. In the Jungle follows the same format, only this time a crocodile is in hiding. "Here I am!" shouts the crocodile on the last spread. Then he asks, "Who wants to hide next?" ( Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 2What happens in the spring? Before the fruit blossoms, before the daffodils, even before the grass? Why, mud, of course. The earth secretly thaws, and one morning a child looks out the door and sees winter receding down a rutted muddy road. The leaves once trapped in old snow escape and fly away. Little puddles of water appear and the youngster takes off her shoes. Mud takes over the world. Feet in mud are happy feet. Hands in mud hold all the promise of green spring, soon to come. The free-verse poem evokes sounds ("squish, squk") and images ("hills remember their colors") and relates the action ("dig it! dance it!"). The first line, "One night it happens," may be the model for many students' future poems. Stringer's acrylic paintings give large scale to objects such as oak leaves that require nearly a full page to be expressed. The artist makes a pair of grimy feet jump for joy and feel good to be alive. A lyrical celebration of the cycle of the seasons.Ruth Semrau, formerly at Lovejoy School, Allen, TX

Kirkus Reviews

The unjustly neglected subject of "gooey, gloppy, mucky, magnificent mud" requires a unique perspective to transform it from the mundane to the celebrated. That perspective is right here, especially in newcomer Stringer's inspired artwork. The joy of a child playing in mud is tied to the change of seasons in such lines as "A cold sweet smell rises in the ground, like sap in the snow." Ray (Shaker Boy, 1994, etc.) uses spirited language to show a child's playfulness as the mud thaws and comes alive with spring. This blithe view of one of the building blocks of life can come only from close observation; the point of view is at ground level, where readers can visually muck around in all that goo. The transformation of winter frost to mud serves as a spawning stage for the green of the new season; it's a concept treated innumerable times in books but never quite like this. Wallow in it.

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