Ages:
4-8
 When
Jeremy finds a stray kitten hiding in his garbage can, he doesn't
know what to do. He can't keep it - his father is allergic to
cats - but Jeremy is determined to find a loving home for the
little creature just the same. Then an inspiration hits him:
Long Nellie! She needs a friend.
An eccentric
scavenger who keeps to herself, Long Nellie lives alone on the
outskirts of town
in her broken-down trailer, and regularly combs the area for
useful things that people have thrown out. Long Nellie should
discover the cat, Jeremy decides, so he must come up with a
surefire way to have the lonely woman and the kitten meet. Little
does
he imagine that his plan will take an unexpected and hilarious
turn. While gently
introducing the theme of tolerance for society's outcasts, author
and illustrator Deborah Turney-Zagwyn tells a whimsical and delightful
tale of a most unlikely - and rewarding - friendship.
This
simple Canadian import, graced by lyrical prose, delivers a message
of
respect and kindness toward a community eccentric without
resorting to heavy-handed pedantry. Long Nellie is the neighborhood
scavenger,
who looks "like the stem of a wild leafless tree" and
lives a gypsy life in a ramshackle trailer. Young Jeremy
worries because Nellie finds almost nothing in his family's
garbage, so
when he discovers a stray kitten, he deems Long Nellie a
likely candidate for caretaker. Jeremy hides the kitten where
Nellie is
sure to find it on her next trip to the town dumpster. After
a comic mishap lands all three amid the dumpster's dripping
garbage,
Jeremy gets the opportunity to visit with Long Nellie in
her exotic abode, "a patchwork nest," decorated
with colored bottles and gypsy clothes "bright as the
flags on circus tents." Vivid,
energetic watercolors capture the glorious confusion of Nellie's
home and sensitively portray Nellie's subtle transformation
from a dull-eyed loner into a fascinating neighbor. Elizabeth
Bush
ISBN 0920501990 |
