TWO STICKS

Maybelle can’t stop the music; can her family stop the crocodiles? From morning til night, little Maybelle plays her two sticks—on the furniture, the walls, on whatever’s in front of her. Protopopescu captures the rhythm of Maybelle’s drumming in her repetitive rhyming stanzas: “dance tune, romance tune, chance tune, trance tune,” and so forth. Down the road to the bayou she drums, attracting a bunch of smiling crocodiles, so friendly she can drum on their teeth. They follow her, dancing, back home. Her parents, however, aren’t crazy about having 11 crocodiles, however frolicsome, in the living room. Maybelle switches to a big calypso drum and solves the problem. The story’s ending may lack clarity or logic, but the text sets a catchy rhythm and never lets go. Wilsdorf’s illustrations, rich in saturated color, glow with warmth and vibrancy. (Picture book. 4-7)