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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Jefferson Public Library | P KOTZWINKLE, W. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... McMinnville Public Library | KOTZWINKLE | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Mount Angel Public Library | E KOTZWINKLE | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Salem Main Library | JP Kotzwinkle | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Walter's family is holding a yard sale, but there are few customers. Walter, farting contentedly near Father, wonders why. When a man offers ten dollars for Walter, Father readily agrees. Walter wonders why. Walter is sad to leave his family behind, but relieved to discover that his new owner is a clown. Walter figures he will help the clown bring joy to children on their birthdays. But the clown has a dastardly plot: he will use Walter's gas to inflate balloons and then pop them to stun guards during bank robberies. Will Walter turn to the dark side? Of course not! He comes out a hero is reunited with his family by doing what he does best.
Author Notes
William Kotzwinkle was born in 1938 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He attended Rider College and Pennsylvania State University.He worked as an editor and writer in the 1960s. William Kotzwinkle is an accomplished author who is best known for his book of the film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, but who has produced a range of work for both adults and children that often transgresses genre boundaries and the distinction between serious and popular fiction. Beginning as a children's writer with The Fireman, he then published novels for adults such as Hermes 3000, The Fan Man, and Queen of Swords, which began to establish him as an original and distinctive novelist. But it was Doctor Rat that made his reputation as a powerful fantasy writer with a sharp satirical edge. The novel focuses upon laboratory rats whose spokesman, the Doctor Rat of the title, eventually escapes from the vast laboratory where experiments on his fellow-creatures are taking place, and whose adventures are interwoven with shorter tales told by animals of different kinds who finally try to form a whole that will make humans more peaceful and benign. But they are all killed. William Kotzwinkle is a novelist and poet, who is known for his broad range of style and subject. He is a two-time recipient of the National Magazine Award for Fiction, a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee. He lives with his wife, author Elizabeth Gundy, in Maine. He has won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel for Doctor Rat in 1977. He published The Million Dollar Bear in 1994.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-In this second far-fetched tale about Walter, neighbors have been avoiding the yard-sale table where Walter has been sitting all day. Unbelievably, Father wonders why! Yet he doesn't hesitate to sell the pup to the first man who stops by to inquire. The new owner, a clown, intends to use Walter for a bank heist by fastening him to a "fart-catcher" in order to inflate balloons with his obnoxious-smelling gas. As the clown pops the balloons in the bank, customers and bank tellers are overcome with the stench. When the perp arrives home with the sack of money, he lights a cigar and is launched across the room because of a gas leak. Walter runs out the door toward his former home, and the police follow the trail of $100 bills fluttering behind him. As they try to arrest Walter, he leads them back to the real culprit. Pages are busy with digital illustrations that give an olive green pallor to the human skin tone and a garish look to the clown. For those who appreciated the lowbrow, tasteless humor of the first book, this one provides much more of the same.-Blair Christolon, Prince William Public Library System, Manassas, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Companion books blossom this spring. The maligned mutt returns in a sequel to last year's bestseller: Walter the Farting Dog: Trouble at the Yard Sale by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray, illus. by Audrey Colman. Father, fed up with Walter's malodorous practice keeping buyers away from his yard sale table, sells the family pet to a suspicious-looking fellow who uses the pooch's singular ability as part of a bank-robbing scheme-a plan that, er, backfires. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Flatulent Walter is driving away yard sale customers, so Father sells the family's pet for ten dollars. Walter's new owner hooks him up to a ""fart catcher""+inflating balloons that will later be wielded as noxious weapons during bank robberies. The collage-style art has a hip quality, though it's too busy. The story lacks cohesion, but those who enjoy irreverent humor may still think it's a ""blast. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
K-Gr. 3. Yes, Walter is back, as gassy as ever. This time, he is at a yard sale, but Father doesn't sell anything, because Walter drives away the customers. Then a man wants to know if Walter is for sale, and while the children, Betty and Billy, are away, Dad makes the deal. The new owner takes Walter home and hooks him up to a fart catcher, blowing up balloons, which the man assures Walter will be used at a children's party, where he works as a clown. \lquote Well, at least it's for the children,' thought Walter, who farted. But it's not! The clown, who is really a robber, bursts the balloons in a bank, and the odor is so bad that the loot is readily given up. A few twists, turns, and farts later, things work out fine. This has the same gross humor as the previous book and even more inventive illustrations, a mix of collage and computer-generated art. In fact, there's so much to see in the pictures, children can look and laugh for hours. Don't muzzle Walter--at either end. --Ilene Cooper Copyright 2004 Booklist