Romeow and Drooliet
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Author-artist Nina Laden has taken her trademark wit and applied it to one of Shakespeare's best-loved plays. Adults familiar with the classic love story will delight in the many references to the original play, all of which make this a rarity: a children's book they want to read again and again. And young children who know nothing of the Bard will be riveted by this funny yet touching tale about Romeow the cat and Drooliet the dog, two star-crossed lovers who meet by chance, marry in secret, and are kept apart by a snarling rottweiler, appalled owners, and the animal control warden. The clever details throughout the book belie the careful research behind this homage to true love won and lostand in the case of this book won againproving once and for all that dogs and cats can be friends.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this dubious spoof, Laden (When Pigasso Met Mootisse) gives the Bard's tragedy a happy ending and cats-versus-dogs households. Romeow, a cat belonging to the Felini family, hangs out at the park with his cat buddies. Sometimes they taunt Turbo (i.e., Tybalt), a Rottweiler owned by the Barkers. When Romeow and friends attend the Barkers' costume ball, Romeow spies Drooliet, a cocker spaniel in an angelic white dress. "Drooliet, now there's a name that I'd drool over anytime," he purrs. Later, the heroine clumsily paraphrases the "rose" soliloquy ("If you were a creature of any other name,/ It would still make my tail wag"), and Romeow proposes. After a secret wedding ("You may lick the bride"), their interspecies romance nearly is cut short when Romeow fights with Turbo and in another departure from the source gets taken to the pound. There will be no homicides or suicides, although Drooliet does get hit by a car (offstage), and Romeow saves her with "one of his nine lives." In awkward gouaches, Laden pictures the star-crossed, bipedal cat and dog in garish clothing, and unnecessarily complicates matters by suggesting that humans witness the action. Literary allusions abound in the flat-footed choruses and plot points, but the name games and wooden dialogue will be lost on children unacquainted with the play. Ages 8-up.
