Jillian Jiggs and the Secret Surprise

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

This hilarious story-cum-activity book should captivate kids from four
to eight. The rhyming couplets—for all but a do-it-yourself playscript
at the book’s end—are great fun and beg to be read aloud. In the
ongoing repetitions, the audience will almost certainly be
participating. The initial tale, which occupies three-quarters of the
book, deals with a neighborhood presentation of a delicious melodrama.
The play begins as a birthday present to the creator’s little sister
and ends up involving every child in the neighborhood.

The last eight pages, in smaller print without illustration, contain
the text for “The Chicken Princess,” a melodrama with a large
children’s cast and expandable chorus. The Dragon, “with as many
heads as you like,” also offers a part to all comers. The bouncy,
rhyming couplets should amuse all ages. Phoebe Gilman’s vivid, comical
illustrations in gouache and colored pencil convey the mood very well.
Highly recommended both as a storybook and an activity manual.