Heading out on a cross-country journey, a young traveler encounters a host of diverse characters along the way, such as Buddy Biggs whose cow has more than twenty-two blue spots and Maybelle Bean whose dog can recite his ABCs. Ages 5^-8. In this original and offbeat picture book, a boy on a bike tours the back roads of the U.S., visiting such locales as Paradise, West Virginia; Carbon Hill, Alabama; and Toomersville, Colorado. Those are real places on a map, but the citizens introduced aren't ordinary folk. Jojo Jones feeds his pet toads flies ala mode; Benny Finn uses real bears for rugs, which works fine till he whips out the vacuum; Ike O'Day, who lives in California, has a white crow that recites Poe. But it is Edward Lear, not Poe, whose spirit haunts these playful rhymes. The boy's strange encounters with oddballs across the country are well matched by Hull's surreal, somewhat murky illustrations, and effective use of refrains and humorous alliteration gives the verse a singsong quality that makes this a rollicking good trip along America's less-traveled roads. Shelley Townsend-Hudson Jim Aylesworth is the author of many books for young readers, including Two Terrible Frights and The Completed Hickory Dickory Dock, both illustrated by Eileen Christelow, and Mother Halverson's New Cat, illustrated by Toni Goffe. His most recent book for Atheneum, Wake Up, Little Children, was illustrated by Walter Lyon Krudop. Mr. Aylesworth has been a first-grade teacher for nearly twenty-five years and marks that as his proudest accomplishment. He lives with his family in Hinsdale, Illinois. Used Book in Good Condition