Amazon Category:  Children Publisher: DOUBLEDAY BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS ISBN-10:  0385320574 Type: Fiction Pages: 32 Copyright: Jan 1 1996 MR. BUZZARD IS TAKING ADVANTAGE OVER ALL THE ANIMALS ON THIS SMALL ISLAND, TRICKING THEM OUT OF THEIR FOOD UNTIL MR. MONKEY FIXES HIM. Mr.Buzzard was a clever one, but he had a rock where his heart should have been. While everyone else had to work hard just to find something to eat, he had no worries at all. His cruel pranks kept his belly full and kept a big buzzard smile on his face. But a sly monkey was watching Mr. Buzzard. He asw Mr. Buzzard cheat Mr. Hare, and he saw Mr. Antelope and Mr. Crab get the same treatment. By the time Mr. Buzzard came to him, Mr. Monkey could smile his big monkey smile. Mr. Monkey had a special trick in mind for Mr. Buzzard. Excerpt A very long time ago, before you were born, there was a small island on which Mr. Monkey lived. Mr. Monkey liked living there, and he walked around with his nose in the air and a flower in his hair. But then the famine came, and everybody had to work very hard just to find something to eat. Everybody, that is, but Mr. Buzzard.

Publishers Weekly
Newbery Honor author Myers again displays his versatility with this pithy and piquant fable...using repetition to humorous effect, Myer's tale dispenses its moral unequivocally. Effective as his storytelling is, Saint James steals the show with her bold paintings. Streamlining her vibrantly hued compositions to minimalism just short of abstraction, she nonetheless includes some playful particulars: each animal, including the villian, is clad in boxer shorts; and Mr. Monkey, clinging to the back of the soaring buzzard, brazenly sticks his long scarlet tongue out at his tormentor.