Product Description

ROTTEN RALPH GANTOS

Product Details

• Brand: Houghton Mifflin
• Published on: 1980-02-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 48 pages

Review
"Rotten Ralph . . . is irresistible." -- Review

Review
"Rotten Ralph . . . is irresistible." (Publishers Weekly )

About the Author
Author and illustrator Nicole Rubel has a degree in fine arts from the Boston Museum School and has taught ceramics, silk screening, and mural design to children. Booklist has described her artwork as "busy, brightly colored paintings, done in child appealing primitive style, filled with subtle, humorous touches." She has over 60 books to her credit, including the popular Rotten Ralph series. She currently resides with her husband on a farm in Aurora, Oregon with a cat, a dog, two horses and sheep.

Jack Gantos: "While I was in college, I began writing stories about animals. When I first met Nicole Rubel she was a painting student... We had a friend who thought we had a similar sense of humor. So we teamed up and began working together on picture books ... At first I thought children's books had to be sweet, warm, and gentle ... After [several] failures, I was very frustrated. Then I remembered what one of my teacheers told me. He said, 'You should write about what you know:' I was sitting at my desk and I looked down on the floor and saw my lousy, grumpy, hissing creep of a cat that loved to scratch my ankles, throw fur around the house, and shred the clothes in my closet. So I wrote the first draft of Rotten Ralph."

Rotten Ralph was the first children's book Jack Gantos published, in
1976. He's gone on to become the author of many books, including
the rest of the Rotten Ralph series, the Joey Pigza novels and the
Jack Henry stories. His novel Joey Pigza Loses Control won a
Newbery Honor. He lives with his wife and daughter in Boston,
Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Rotten yet Sweet
My 2-year-old can't get enough of this book! The illustrations are creative, unique and keep his attention. Rotten Ralph is a lovable character even with his mischievous ways. This book reinforces to children that even if they misbehave and have to go to time-out, they are still loved and important. We've enjoyed all the other Rotten Ralph titles as well.

The ultimate felonious feline
There are certain unchangeable constants in this world. The tides. The phases of the moon. And the love children will always have for naughty, bad, not-so-very-nice behavior. It is this love that has made "The Cat In the Hat" a picture book classic, and that has raised David Shannon's, "No, David!" from obscurity to beloved bedtime must. And though "Rotten Ralph" is not original in terms of bad-pet-wreaks-havoc (the best version of which, by the way, is Joan Aiken's, "Arabel's Raven"), it is certainly one of the more original and visually stimulating of its kind. There will always be certain fuddy duddy parents out there that dislike "Rotten Ralph" on the basis of its content (i.e. naughtiness to them=evil incarnate). But there will also always be parents who recognize why children love Ralph's wicked ways, and shall purchase accordingly.

Ralph is a cat that, as his owner Sarah puts it is, "sometimes ... very hard to love". He delights in tormenting those around him. When Sarah practices ballet, Ralph makes fun of her. When she has a tea party, he takes precisely one bite out of each cookie. When she's swinging (and I'm not entirely certain that the term "rotten" quite covers this one) he saws off the branches of the tree she hangs from. All this comes to a head when the family, with Ralph in tow, goes to the circus. Ralph engages in out-and-out highly despicable behavior, causing Sarah's father to insist that the fam abandon Ralph to the circus itself. By doing so, Ralph learns humility and how to fend for himself. And when at last he is reunited with the ever-caring Sarah, he tries not to be so very rotten after all. "Except for sometimes when Mother cooked lobster for dinner".

Author Jack Gantos originally wrote this tale in 1976, and it allowed him to jump start his lucrative career as a children's author. Since that time he has gone on to write the incredibly well-written "Joey Pigza" series (if you haven't you MUST run out and read "Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key" at once!) as well as the fabulous young adult autobiography, "Hole In My Life". And it all started with one malicious and very naughty kitty. Ralph's actions are, of course, despicable. In fact, they're often so ludicrously terrible that they strike great guffaws of laughter from the audience. Of course, the story feels like exactly what it is. A writer's first picture book. It's a fine little piece but it doesn't have the ease and sophistication of the later "Ralph" books. In fact, most parents probably wouldn't have even noticed its existence if Mr. Gantos hadn't been paired with illustrator Nichole Rubel. Ms. Rubel has worked on other children's books, it's true. But when she has reached the end of her too brief life and joined the choir invisible, one cannot help but think that what Ms. Rubel will be most remembered for will be her participation in the "Rotten Ralph" series. After all, she imbues him with such life, verve, and wanton (not to say gleeful) destruction that long after reading the story, the image of him is burned deeply into one's brain. Now, the book does suffer from containing zippo people of color (unless you count the questionable fellow on a camel, midway through the tale) so don't expect much in the way of multiculturalism here. Then again, this is a problem through the entire series, so I shouldn't have been too surprised. And the pictures do sometimes strike you as slightly modified William Steigs (later Steig, of course) in their wavy nightmarish way. So if you've a child who fears the wiggly, avoid this book at all costs.

Otherwise, it's a perfectly good story about a perfectly awful pet. Unlike some of the other "Ralph" books, the cat in this tale faces a mighty good comeuppance for his crimes. Kids will enjoy his foibles just as much as they clamor to read about some of his other adventures. A fun and deeply disturbing tale.

Rotten but loveable
Of all the books that I read to my son when he was young, "Rotten Ralph" was one of my--and his--favorites. The artwork is incredible--very kinetic and colorful, a combination of Keith Haring and Outsider Art. The story is written with great wit, and one can sympahize with the poor heroine trying to get her unruly cat to behave--kind of like she's the parent and Ralph's the child. Yeah, Ralph's behavior is really rotten, but Sarah loves him anyway. Sound familiar? Like Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," "Rotten Ralph" project a child's fears to an imaginary realm where they can be dealt with safely. It's a great piece of children's literature.