All For a Dime

June 22, 2015
It’s Market Day in Bear and Mole’s fourth adventure, and they are ready to sell their wares, along with a female friend, Skunk. But Mole’s “fresh hand caught worms” and Skunk’s “highly aromatic perfume” aren’t attracting buyers so much as wrinkled noses and all-around disgust. By switching roles, Skunk and Mole become their own best customers, passing a single dime back and forth as they buy up all the perfume and worms they want, while Bear’s blueberry sales lead to a sweet ending. Hillenbrand’s mixed-media artwork should provoke plenty of giggles, as he plays up the smelly, squirmy disruptions Skunk and Mole inflict on the fair, as well as the joy they get out of their less-than-hot-ticket items. Ages 3–6.

July 1, 2015
Bear, Mole, and Skunk try to sell their favorite things on Market Day with surprising results. Mole has unearthed a pail of worms, Bear has picked blueberries, and Skunk has made perfume. On Market Day, they set up tents and signs advertising Bear's berries, Mole's worms, and Skunk's perfume, hoping to earn money selling what each loves best. Bear has a brisk business selling berries, but no one buys worms or perfume until Mole and Skunk switch places. Skunk initiates a sale by giving Mole a dime and buys some of her own lovely perfume, and Mole returns the dime to Skunk and purchases some of his "scrumptious" worms. Skunk and Mole continue exchanging the single dime, spraying perfume, and eating worms until nothing's "left but a dime." Fortunately, Bear has earned enough dimes to treat them to ice cream. This simple, good-natured tale's greatly enhanced by winsome illustrations created with pencil, ink, pastel, crayon, pixels, watercolor, collage, and china marker. Rendered in loose lines and cheery colors, Bear, Mole, and Skunk fill the pages in their sporty coveralls as Bear steadfastly turns a neat profit while frivolous Mole and Skunk onomatopoetically "slurp" and "puff" theirs away. Exuberant, naive entrepreneurs risk "all for a dime" in this rib-tickling read-aloud. (Picture book. 3-6)

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