Little Old Mrs. Pepperpot by Alf Prøysen

Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. 5-8)Ī collection of parental wishes for a child. An attractive book that will especially entertain newly independent readers. In the excellent translation, the rather old-fashioned story moves along with brisk good humor. Berg, a Swedish political cartoonist who was Prysen's original illustrator, depicts the doughty heroine looking appropriately like a somewhat frazzled pepperpot and also provides authentic details of the northern landscape. She finally decides to make do with snow, but she suddenly shrinks and falls into her pail, which rolls downhill and gets hooked on the moose's antler-thus giving him a well-deserved fright. Undaunted, she sets out again with a pole, and then with a gun, all to no avail-the baleful moose still hovers.

Pepperpot tries to break the ice in another one nearby, but she's chased by a belligerent moose. Pepperpot to the Rescue, 1963) this amusing additional tale is a good sample of their Scandinavian flavor. The little old lady who shrinks ``to the size of a teaspoon'' at unexpected moments has appeared in several story collections (Mrs.

Little Old Mrs. Pepperpot by Alf Prøysen