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Reviewed by:
  • Urgency Emergency!: Big Bad Wolf by Dosh Archer; and: Urgency Emergency!: Itsy Bitsy Spider by Dosh Archer
  • Jeannette Hulick
Archer, Dosh . Urgency Emergency!: Big Bad Wolf; written and illus. by Dosh Archer. Whitman, 2013. [48p]. ISBN 978-0-8075-8352-4 $12.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 1-3.
Urgency Emergency!: Itsy Bitsy Spider; written and illus. by Dosh Archer. Whitman, 2013. [48p]. ISBN 978-0-8075-8358-6 $12.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 1-3.

Doctor Glenda, a clever canine, and Nurse Percy, an intrepid chicken, handle emergencies at City Hospital, where they serve fairy-tale and nursery-rhyme characters in need of medical assistance. In Big Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf is brought in for choking ("It may not be something stuck in his throat—it may be someone"); Doctor Glenda and Nurse Percy pull a granny from Wolf 's gullet mostly unharmed ("She was damp and a bit chewed around the edges, but otherwise OK"), then promptly call police for Wolf 's arrest. In Itsy Bitsy Spider, Itsy has suffered a cut to the head after the rain washed her right out of the waterspout, but Doctor Glenda stitches and bandages the cut while Nurse Percy provides comfort (he "held all of Itsy's hands"). Big Bad Wolf has a slight edge on humor, but both are solid, amusing texts that would work well as read-alones or readalouds, and the writing is clear, concise, and accessible to a primary-grade audience. The folkloric connections broaden the use possibilities for libraries and classrooms, and the titles could inspire student writing or dramatic projects in a similar vein, while the medical situations are surprisingly educational. The bold, childlike art is appealingly comic, if unsophisticated, and the lipsticked, flop-eared Glenda and fuschia-combed Percy, in his turquoise scrubs, are a stalwart duo. Use this to inject some humor into a familiar folklore unit, or give it to the primary-grade readers who are tickled by fractured fairy tales. [End Page 72]

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