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Summary
Summary
On a knotty little hill, In a dreary little funk, Mrs. Biddlebox rolled over On the wrong side of her bunk. Mrs. Biddlebox is having a really bad day. The birds are screeching, her belly is grumbling, and even her crumpets are stale. What is she to do? Then, suddenly, Mrs. Biddlebox has the most bewitching idea! With a pinch of magic and just the right amount of humor, Linda Smith and Marla Frazee have whipped up an enchantingly original tale that will charm anyone who's ever woken up on the wrong side of the bunk.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-3-Poor Mrs. Biddlebox gets up on the wrong side of the bunk. In the throes of a "dreary little funk," she has an idea: "I will cook this rotten morning!/I will turn it into cake!/I will fire up my oven!/I will set the day to bake!" She gathers up the gloom and after twirling fog like spaghetti and rolling up the sky like carpeting, she bakes the entire bad day and eats it. "Now with her belly full of crumblies/And her nighty cap pulled tight,/She threw the door wide open/And welcomed in the night!" Frazee's dramatic illustrations slather the pages in black and gray with subtle color highlights and eerie swirls of white. If gloom and doom have a face, this could be it. However, the depictions are not without humor. Mrs. B. is a determined little witch with a great shock of frizzled ponytail. She gleefully struts around the baking bad day and devours it greedily. While the book looks like a Halloween title, its overarching theme is one of empowerment by facing one's troubles squarely.-Mary Ann Carcich, Mattituck-Laurel Public Library, Mattituck, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Gloomy feelings dont stand a chance in this snappy picture book about a woman who kicks a dreary little funk with her can-do spirit. When Mrs. Biddlebox wakes up on the wrong side of her bunk, the morning looks gray: The birds gave her a headache./ There were creakies in her chair. With only some bitter tea and some hard-to-chew crumpets for breakfast, Mrs. Biddlebox quickly decides to set things to rights the best way she knows: I will cook this rotten morning/ I will turn it into cake! Her off-the-cuff recipe calls for whisking the dark and dull clouds, fog and all into a great pot before shaping it into a crumbly delight. Satiated by her sweet treat, Mrs. Biddlebox toddles off for a restful night s sleep. In the rhyming text inspired by the late Smith s (When Moon Fell Down) battle with cancer, positive thinking prevails, setting off a satisfying chain of events. The jaunty rhythm of Smith s words captures the energy of her protagonist s out-of-the-box thinking and sheer determination. Young readers may well come away with a new zeal for their own endeavors. Frazee (The Seven Silly Eaters) uses pencil lines and cross-hatching to dramatic effect in depicting Mrs. Biddlebox s dark surroundings. Swirls of white and spindly gold-yellow let the sun in at just the right moment. Memorable scenes include a spread featuring the ample-bottomed baker dancing around the oven, her frizzy pigtail bopping along. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Primary) ""The birds gave her a headache. / There were creakies in her chair. / A breeze blew dank and dreary / And mussied up her hair."" Indeed, Mrs. Biddlebox starts her day ""in a dreary little funk"" that swirls around her in the relentless black that dominates Frazee's atmospheric setting. But though the round little black-clad woman's face is grim, she herself is undaunted. Grabbing her broom, she twirls fog ""like spaghetti,"" sweeps up shadows and gloom, and winds up a long ray of sun, collecting everything about ""that despicable bad day"" together and beating and kneading it into a cake that turns out, despite its bleak ingredients, to be delicious-so sweet that Mrs. Biddlebox eats it all up before going contentedly to sleep. Smith's verse skips along with good-humored determination, while Frazee's energetic illustrations reinforce a meaning that goes beyond the conventional ""make lemonade."" Mrs. Biddlebox's troubles (and her courage) are clearly very large indeed, though expressed metaphorically: she gets out of ""the wrong side of the bunk"" but later rolls up a massive and thunderous sky ""like carpeting."" The dark tones persist despite the rays of light that greet her as she triumphs and ""welcome[s] in the night."" Frazee depicts the feisty little lady's energetic transformation from beleaguered grouch to jubilant cook with all the vigor it deserves, deftly adding such expressive touches as a concerned pet goose. The message never outweighs the story here; instead, it gives it depth, plus an extraordinary resonance. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Features pinched, frizzy hair floating like a cloud of concentrated gloom overhead, entirely surrounded by great, dark angry swirls of color, old Mrs. Biddlebox has definitely gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. But rather than just grump around, she marches off to gather up dirt and shadows, twirl the fog around her broomstick like oversized cobwebs, roll up the lowering sky, stir in a sunbeam, pour it all into a pan, and bake the day into a delicious cake. Smith's posthumous text displays the animated rhythm and rhyme of her debut, When The Moon Fell Down; Frazee (Everywhere Babies, 2001, etc.) gets not only Mrs. Biddlebox's evil mood just right, but her ultimate "witchety delight" too as, with a full belly, she throws open her window (a door in the verse, but let's not quibble) to a moonlit night aswirl, this time, with flower-like stars. If Betsy Everitt's Mean Soup (1992) isn't filling enough, dish up this tempting dessert. (Picture book. 6-8)
Booklist Review
PreS^-Gr. 2. Sometimes, the day is just not a good one, even for the smallest person. Mrs. Biddlebox, a muffin-shaped middle-aged woman with frizzy hair pulled back into a wild ponytail, wakes up in a funk. Her belly is "full of grumblies" in this rhymed tale, but she has an idea. She gathers up a filthy shadow from her skirt, twirls the fog like spaghetti, rolls up the sky like a carpet, hooks a ray of sun like yarn, and whips and whisks and rolls "the day out flat." She bakes the odious day into a sweet cake, eats it all up, and then welcomes in the night as she tucks herself in bed. Using a limited palette of myriad grays lightened with washes of gold, pink, green, and blue, Frazee offers a vision that features Mrs. Biddlebox in all sorts of dramatic poses; her crinkly eyes and tiny hands hold a world of expressions. This is an inventive and joyous approach to the drearies. --GraceAnne A. DeCandidoNew First Novels for Youth
