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Loading... The Quitting Dealby Tobi Tobias
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Mother and daughter vow to help each other give up respective habits--smoking and thumb-sucking. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The story of Jenny, a young girl who compulsively sucks her thumb (even though the dentist says she needs to stop), and the deal she makes with her mother - if Jenny stops sucking, Mommy will stop smoking - it offers a very realistic portrait of how persistent our bad habits can be. As the mother-daughter pair try to conquer their addictions, using everything from "the Talking Cure" to "the Candy Cure," they discover that change can take a long time. With smoking - particularly around young children - having become so much less acceptable in the last thirty-five years, I think some readers today might be taken aback by the scene in which Jenny's mother drops her cigarette ash on her infant son's head (OK, I kind-of chuckled when I read that). But although one gets the sense that smoking was generally less of a "big deal" when this was written, it is still presented as a negative (hence the quitting).
Of course, since I picked this up for the artwork, the narrative interest was secondary for me. Often associated today with her fairy-tale adaptations, Trina Schart Hyman has worked on a broad range of books throughout her career, and I sometimes think that her more realistic titles get short shrift. The illustrations here - they look like pencil drawings, with red embellishment - have great appeal, with Hyman's usual expressive faces, and her appealing creatures. The family cats, who appear in many of the scenes, are particularly well done, something that will come as no surprise to the artists' fans. All in all, this was a pleasant little interlude in picture-book history, one I would recommend to those researching the genre, or to those who simply love Trina Schart Hyman. ( )