The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Johnston, Tony

Levi Strauss Gets a Bright Idea: A Fairly Fabricated Story of a Pair of Pants

32 pp. | Harcourt | September, 2011 | Trade ISBN 978-0-15-206145-6 $16.99

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Stacy Innerst. During the California gold rush, everyone's pants disintegrated, giving Levi Strauss an idea that precipitated the "Great Pants Rush." This semi–tall tale isn't for biography seekers; an author's note explains which story elements are tomfoolery, and the omniscient narrator capably wields regional color ("Yessir, all of California was mining in the vanilla"--i.e., naked). The cloudy-edged illustrations are paintings on, yes, denim.

Reviewer: Nell Beram