Reviews

K-Gr 3-- As in Bottner's Mean Maxine (Pantheon, 1980; o.p.) and Zoo Song (Scholastic, 1989), the theme of this book is about finding ways for very different people to resolve conflicts without bloodshed. A mismatched duo, Bootsie and the narrator are thrown together because of their mothers' friendship. Underneath Bootsie's bouncy blond hair, frilly dress, and ribboned straw hat lies the heart of a tyrant. The moment adults clear the room, the sweet smile turns into a sneer and the real child emerges. She becomes a vicious dinosaur intent on devouring her playmate. The narrator's mother gives neither comfort nor protection, so the little girl decides to beat the bully at her own game--with humorous, successful results. The story may be somewhat slight, but it will certainly be appreciated by all children forced to deal with Jekyll-and-Hyde playmates. The colorful cartoon and wash drawings, filled with amusing detail, perfectly express the terroristic tactics and the narrator's frustration. When Bootsie is on a rampage, even the stuffed animals cover their eyes. A book that treats a common and often troubling situation with an entertaining but effective touch. --Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI

``My mother and Bootsie Barker's mother are best friends,'' begins the diminutive narrator of this uproariously illustrated story. Bootsie stops short of actually biting, but she bares her teeth in a gleeful lethal grin as the daily mom-and-daughter visit begins. Wearing her broad-brimmed black hat and wickedly pointy hot-pink boots, Bootsie ignores all injunctions to ``play nicely, girls!'' She pretends to be a hungry dinosaur, tears up her timid host's book about turtles and knocks over an aquarium housing Charlene the salamander. Alas, the girls' parents are blind to Bootsie's malevolence and plan an overnight stay; the narrator, certain that she and Charlene will be ``rushed to the hospital with dinosaur bites,'' confides her fears to her mother, whose calm response plants the germ of an idea. The next day the beleaguered heroine thinks fast and gives Bootsie a witty comeuppance. Bottner ( Let Me Tell You Everything ) smoothly adopts the understandably anxious child's point of view, while Rathmann ( Ruby the Copycat ) contributes formidable, hyper-bright watercolors that echo the story's nightmarish but hilarious exaggeration. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)