Patrick Loehr presents a cautionary tale about eating raw hot dogs and listening to sisters. Mucumber McGee thinks he's going to die after taking a bite of an uncooked hot dog and envisions all of the things he's going to miss in life. Luckily his mother steps in.
Where the rain falls and the wind howls, little Mucumber's stomach growls. But what can he do when there's nothing to chew, like apples or crackers or porridge or stew? But wait—a hot dog!—albeit quite old . . . and wrinkled and lumpy and lonely and cold. We all know it's true—food is better when new. But if you were that hungry, what would you do?
School Library Journal Gr 1-3
This book opens to an ominous spread of a dark and rainy night; a large stone house; and a pale, thin boy in a black suit. The rhyming text tells the plight of this child, Mucumber McGee, who has missed lunch and dinner and is very hungry. He finds one lone hot dog in the back of the icebox and consumes half of it before his sister steps in to deliver a lecture on the hazards of eating raw meat. Mucumber spends the rest of the book dramatically awaiting his death, until Mother arrives.
"Sweet Mucumber, don't worry./If you'd only looked,/the package says clearly:/Hot dogs are precooked!" While the text gets a little over-the-top, the illustrations, full of dark shadows and threatening details, are humorously macabre-the gothic figures in the old portraits are always eating something unexpected like pancakes or a turkey leg. Mucumber's faithful pet lizard also helps to keep the mood from getting too heavy. For the youngest fans of dark humor. —Julie Roach
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Mucumber McGee and the Half-Eaten Hot Dog by Patrick Loehr
Patrick Loehr is an artist, illustrator and writer from Denver, Colorado. His first book, Mucumber McGee and the Half-Eaten Hot Dog, was originally released by HarperCollins in 2007. The book won critical acclaim as a finalist for the Borders Original Voices Award. Patrick has since released two more books in the Mucumber McGee series.
ISBN-13: 9780060823276
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 7/3/2007
Pages: 32
Age range: 4 - 6 Years
Picture Books - Juvenile Fiction | Humorous Stories
Picture Books - Juvenile Fiction | Family | General (see also headings under Social Themes)
Picture Books - Juvenile Fiction | Cooking & Food
-Hunger -Brothers and sisters
-Frankfurters -Stories in rhyme
OCLC Number: OCLC#269372880
Dewey: FIC
LCCN: 2006030568