Bongo Larry

One day, Martin Frobisher, owner of the Hotel Larry, gets a phone call. It is the police, and they have taken Larry (a polar bear and family friend) into custody for playing a drum in a public park. ("I was playing bongos, man," Larry insists.) In time--not very much time--it becomes clear that Larry is officially a bohemian, beatnik, beret-toting bear. Wearing shades, he recites poems such as "Are Muffins Like Fish?", burns candles, and plays bongos while he sips blueberry juice and paints blueberry muffins (and fish). Rather than bemoan Larry's beatnik-ness, the family (Martin, his wife, Semolina, and young Mildred) decide to don their coolest, craziest clothes and slink down to Cafe Mama Bear with him, where he bongos with Big Bear, "the ever-loving, double-clutching, non-stop, groovy King of Cool." Together they lay some sweet sounds on the audience, with 'frantic rhythms.'" Daniel Pinkwater's work is always fresh and original, and Jill Pinkwater's colorful, cartoonish depictions of beat polar bears are groovy, too. Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. We dig it! (Ages 4 to 8) --Karin Snelson