School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-3-Many readers will recognize the cover silhouette of four animals standing tall on one another's backs. The donkey, dog, cat, and rooster are surely those familiar music makers from Bremen. Huling casts them as the Boogie-Woogie Band and Blues Ensemble in this humorous spin on the Grimms' tale. As in Puss in Cowboy Boots (S & S, 2002), she sets her retelling in the rural South. Ol' Bloo Donkey, overhearing Farmer Brown's decision that "we can't afford to feed no critter that can't work," runs off "to seek fame and fortune, hee-hawin' all the way." He sets his sights on singing in a New Orleans honky-tonk and soon acquires a band of sorry cohorts. As expected, nightfall brings them to a cabin occupied by "three rough, tough, ugly-lookin' thieves, jest glarin' at one another and pickin' their teeth with their knives." Huling has fun with dialogue and details, casting them in down-home language for a fulsome embellishment of the spare original. Sorensen's oils are softly fulsome, too, focusing on the homely, comic personalities of the animals and humans. Small, black-silhouette scenes facing many paintings are a suggestive tie to the original tale. Though the narrators are a bit loquacious, the rhythmic prose moves nicely. Some of the jazzy terms will be more familiar to adults, who are probably the most likely audience anyway for this spoof. The story should read aloud well, and the One-Eyed Lemony Cat all puffed up and screechin' in the match light of the thief will scare and delight many a viewer.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The story of the Bremen Town Musicians works just as well in the American South as it does in the Black Forest. Ol' Bloo Donkey doesn't have as much singing talent as he thinks he does-"Now, if you can imagine the sound an accordion makes fallin' down a flight of stairs, you got some notion of the sound..."-but that doesn't stop him from seeking his fortune in New Orleans with a similarly gifted group (Rusty Red Rooster's voice sounds "like a player piano bein' hit with an ax"). The illustrations are a surprise; in contrast to the antic narration, Sorensen (My Love Will Be with You) contributes thoughtful, painterly landscapes of the tin-roofed buildings and dry scrub of the South, and realistic portraits of the animals (save for the eye patch on One-Eyed Lemony Cat). Small black silhouettes adjacent to the main paintings add another layer of visual interest. Read-aloud audiences will giggle at the dialect, nonstop action, and atmospheric descriptions of Huling's (Puss in Cowboy Boots) retelling: "There was gumbo and etouffee, muffalettas and po-boys, pralines and bread puddin', and more besides." Ages 6-10. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Unappreciated aging farm donkey Ol' Bloo sets his sights on a singing career in New Orleans. En route, he meets three equally tone-deaf animal friends, and together they inadvertently thwart some thieving humans. In this "Bremen Town Musicians" retelling, Huling goes whole hog with her Southern-flavored narration and dialogue ("Why, I'll be a batter-fried wing-ding"), tempered by Sxrensen's subdued oil paintings. Copyright 2010 of The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
(Picture book/folktale. 6-10)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.