The Gum-Chewing Rattler Book

Do rattlesnakes chew bubble gum? Of course rattlesnakes chew bubble gum. Joe Hayes says they blow bubbles too!

Children's Literature

Veteran storyteller Hayes masterfully spins a kid-pleasing tall-tale from the Arizona desert. From the first line, "When I was a kid growing up in Arizona, I used to love to chew bubblegum," he shows his gift for connecting with young readers, who will completely accept his report of gum-inspired scoldings from a stern teacher and gum-caused laundry woes, and then—why not?—his story of how his trusty wad of bubblegum saved him from a rattlesnake: the snake's fangs get entangled in the gum and then the snake blows the world's biggest bubble which explodes in the world's biggest pop. Mexican artist Antonio Castro's hyper-realistic illustrations complement the text perfectly. Young Joe is depicted with such meticulous attention to detail, from the gum bulge in his cheek to the hole in the bottom of his boot, that the gum-chewing rattler seems just as convincing: if a snake did chew bubblegum, this would be exactly how he would look. A brief illustrator's note at the end shows how Castro uses models to achieve his realistic effects. A surefire storytime pleaser.