Louella Mae, She's Run Away!

Louella Mae, She's Run Away!
By: Karen Beaumount Alarcon
Illustrated by: Rosanne Litzinger
Copyright: 2002
Pages: 32
Reading Level: 4-8

"Fetch the ol' hound dog!
Fetch all your kin!
Louella Mae's run away again!

She's not in the cornfields!
She's not in the hay!
Where, oh where, is Louella Mae?"

Louella Mae, has run away. This cleaver rhyming book is the search for Louella Mae. They look in the cornfields, and the hay. They call the neighbors, and the kin, to find Louella Mae. No luck, so they "round up the horses", and "hitch up the team". They look by the stream, the tree, and the barn. They then go into the forest and find a great big bear, a deep ditch, and a well. The look on the ridge, and the bridge, and then they give up and decide Louella Mae really is gone. The get inside the house and find Louella Mae, the pig, hiding in the tub.
This book is so cleaver, because the whole time you are thinking they are looking for a little girl Louella Mae. Or at least that is what I thought, So I was very surprised to find that it was pig that cause all that trouble and searching.

Recommend to: Everyone, this is a great bedtime story because the rhymes are silly and soothing.
Problems: At one point in the illustrations there is a little girl falling out of the wagon, and throughout the book the little girl is some what ignored. Its a little sad.
My Reaction: Loved it, I picked it off the shelf when I saw the title. My name is Martha Mae, so I love the name. And I feel even more in love when I found out it was a pig, not the little girl I was expecting. I also was very interested to read another children's book by Karen Beaumont. It was similar but the illustrations were so different it felt completely new. Having the publisher always pick the illustrator makes me wonder what they would choose. Because both seemed to fit perfectly for the writing. Yet they were both completely different.