Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #258107 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Library Binding
• 40 pages

From Booklist
K-Gr. 2. A love of reading is the center of this book, in which a scarecrow shares his passion with a redheaded boy. The young narrator is startled on a stroll through the fields when he comes upon a talking scarecrow with a suitcase by his side. The boy is not a reader, but the scarecrow loves a good book, and fortunately there are some in the suitcase. Before long, the boy is reading Moby Dick, and then the duo moves on to Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, and The Secret Garden. Moulton's text has real problems. A rhyming text is often hard to sustain, and this one, much, much too long, has plenty of opportunity to falter. But the artwork is grand. Using tea-stained papers that give an antique feeling to the art, Good provides a cast of jolly characters, richly drawn. When drawing characters from other books, she manages to give the feel of the original illustrations. This is purposive (and what nonreader would start his reading career with Moby Dick?), but it's hard to find fault with the book-loving message. Ilene Cooper
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Customer Reviews

Scarecrow Pete
My first introduction to Mark Moulton's books. Great introduction to children on the loving to read and where it can take you. Artwork is beautiful.

Scarecrow Pete
I read Scarecrow Pete by Mark Kimball Moulton. I liked it and I would recommend this book because the boy didn't find the scarecrow and that part was funny. In the book I read when the scarecrow said to come to him to meet him then the boy found the scarecrow and started to talk to him. This helped convince me that it was a good book.

what a treasure!
I picked this up on a whim at our local bookstore as something to read to my 8 year old son to kill some time in the store. What a surprise! It starts out a little slow, but it is rhymy and the illlustrations are full color, full page, so we kept going. Boy, was I glad we did! It turns out that the scarecrow encourages the boy to read a bunch of classic children's literature over one summer. The message of the book is that books can take you anywhere you want to go - a great advocate for literacy in our sound-byte, instant gratification, video game world. My son decided he wanted to buy and read a classic!! (ironically not one mentioned in the book, but still a classic) The books recommended by Scarecrow Pete include (now these are only a few that I can remember off the top of my head) Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Moby Dick, and more. The rhyming nature and illustrations would appeal to a child younger than one able to read those level of books independently, so I think this is one book that would last several years. A good investment, in my opinion.