MR. GUMPY'S OUTING
illustrated by John Burningham & by John Burningham
Mr. Gumpy's little scow becomes a miniature ark when he takes two children and one each of various domestic animals for a ride. But no one heeds Mr. Gumpy's conditions and soon "The goat kicked/ The pig mucked about/ The children squabbled" and so on until "The boat tipped/ and into the water they fell." But the water appears so warmly inviting, and the tea they all share after they swim to the bank and dry in the sum so satisfying, that the promise of the first glowing page is fulfilled. Burningham's sketchy yellow lines make the sun shine on his pages, and his animals — sometimes jaunty, more often appealingly hesitant — are his alone, unostentatiously distinctive. Mr. Gumpy has the bumbling charm of an English Mr. Hulot and his outing is an unqualified pleasure.