Old Misery

March 1, 2018
A tale of trickery takes an extra left turn.Old Misery is a small, stooped, elderly woman with bug eyes, skinny limbs, a granny cap, and bulbous jowls that don't droop. She narrates: "Ain't got two pennies to rub together. Ain't got nothing except old Rutterkin here, and she's about as worthless as a dog with fleas." Rutterkin's a black cat whose head and ears form a sideways crescent. But Old Misery has one other thing: an apple tree, perched atop an exaggeratedly steep hill. Ayto's mostly black-and-white pencil drawings use lines ranging from severe and chaotic to gentle; gentlest are the fine, tiny, checkered crosshatchings that make up the hill and sky. Misery's skin is the flat white of the paper; only the apples are red, emphasizing their centrality. The tree would feed Misery "if it weren't for the wicked stealing": Children, animals, and adults, including "the local vicar looking mighty wiffy-waffy," all raid it. An archetypal stranger visits and grants a wish, allowing Misery to solve her apple problem creatively. When Mr. Death arrives, skull-faced, wearing a top hat and tails, can she best him too? Yes, but there's a second twist, enacting sweet revenge in a way that's totally accessible to the younger set.Shelve this bonbon with Edward Gorey. (Picture book. 5-8)

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March 1, 2018
Grades K-3 Here's a skinny old lady named Old Misery. You might be miserable too if you ain't got two pennies to rub together and your only companion was an eel-flat black cat named Rutterkin. To top it off, Old Misery's got to climb a comically tall hill to reach her single joy in life, her apple tree. Good eating apples and all, if it wern't for the wicked stealing. After she reluctantly feeds a drifter, he grants her wish that everyone who steals from her tree sticks to it. Thus are many culprits revealed. She frees them and all is, well, miserable, until skull-faced Mr. Death comes to claim her. Old Misery has a wily ploy?stick Death to her tree!?but watch out, Old Misery, because Death is even craftier. The casket shape of this weird little ditty provides plenty of room for the bizarrely expansive interiors of Old Misery's home, within which Ayto's Goreyesque figures posture. Except for the red apples, the book is drawn entirely is crosshatched black-and-white, appropriate for the folksy, slightly eerie, fable-like feel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)