THE GIANT BALL OF STRING

Praise be to those who see the joys of inspired silliness, for they shall delight the masses. Geisert, whose detailed townscapes executed with his wife Bonnie (Desert Town, 2001, etc.) both please and teach, here takes a solo journey to Rumpus Ridge, Wisconsin. It’s a small mining town (the inhabitants, by the way, are anthropomorphic pigs) where children have created a giant ball of string, a local attraction that is displayed in a gazebo near the river. When a rainstorm sends the ball of string to the nearby town of Cornwall and Cornwall decides to keep it, a plot ensues. The young folk of Rumpus Ridge do not take this lightly, and they boat to Cornwall with a wildly elaborate waterworks and construction plan for getting their artifact back. Geisert’s clear, deadpan prose and carefully detailed illustrations include tunnels, a windmill, subterfuge, and even explosions. A distant but affectionate cousin to John Vernon Lord’s venerable Giant Jam Sandwich (1975). (Picture book. 3-8)