Blue Moose

Blue Moose #1

by Daniel Pinkwater

A man who runs a restaurant on the edge of the big north woods meets a talking blue moose that moves in and spends the winter serving as head waiter.

Genres: Childrens, Fiction, Picture Books, Kids, Humor

47 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1975

About the author

Daniel Manus Pinkwater is an author of mostly children's books and is an occasional commentator on National Public Radio. He attended Bard College. Well-known books include Lizard Music, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, Fat Men from Space, Borgel, and the picture book The Big Orange Splot. Pinkwater has also illustrated many of his books in the past, although for more recent works that task has passed to his wife Jill Pinkwater.

Reviews

[Cheryl]

"I am not a tame moose. You are a tame game warden." And if a moose who talks, is blue, and assumes the job of headwaiter isn't magical enough, there's the chapter in which the moose hums a thaw and a meadow....

[hhertzof]

Blue Moose, I saw you standing alone, without a gingerbread in your mouth, without clam chowder of your own.

[Robin Berman]

I am starting to see the pattern in Pinkwater's childrens' books. They all have something to do with food, and the illustrated character/s all resemble Mr. Pinkwater himself. I love the absurdity and sarcasm in the children's books including this one. The scene at the end with the hermit named Dave, the blue moose, mr. Breton/aka chef, and the cute little owl doing a music jam session is too cute. I wonder if such a restaurant exists where people walk 7 miles in snowshoes to indulge in the exquisite food. The absurdity of a moose that speaks French better than the humans. lol I am now inspired to make fresh gingerbread.

A note: the character mr. Bobowitz- is he the same mr. Bobowitz from the Hoboken Chicken Emergency books? ;-)

[Sandy Brehl]

The ultimate Pinkwater book- rich with wry humor and subtle subplots.

[C.L.]

Really wonderful, silly kids story about a lonely chef who befriends a blue moose.

[Amber Case]

This book is silly and inventive, and one of my favorite childhood reads. The book explores the unlikely relationship between a lonely chef and a precocious moose. Read it to a kid, or read it again as adult for a lot of new and unexpected perspectives.

[Joshua Zemke]

liek dis if u cry evertim

[Twan]

Bugle

[Moonbeam Albin-Frey]

One of the funniest picture books you can read to your children. 11/10 would bugle again!

[elstaffe]

Very much my kind of children's book.

[Brenna]

In reading a Daniel Pinkwater book, a reader has come to expect that there will be any number of bizarre circumstance to which there will be no explanation.

Why does the talking blue moose take such umbrage when called "tame" by a local game warden? Whatever prompted restaurant proprieter Breton to establish a dining facility in the backwoods of Maine, which caters to a small, unappreciative customer base? And how did winter manage to all but disappear for a spate of time, only to resurge after a handful of days?

No answers are forthcoming. This does not mean, however, that the book itself is a complete mess. In fact, though it brings up more questions than solutions, Blue Moose is a trip to the oasis of the surreal for the pre-school bunch.

The book is not so much funny as it is... peculiar. Illustrated as it is in black-and-white, a reader must take the narrator's word that the moose is, in fact, of a bluish hue. And yet, there is an inexplicable level of fun to be had throughout the non-linear storyline. it is, simply, a book about a restauranteur, a blue moose, and the relentless winter surrounding them.

boom doo be doo, bowm bowm.

[Charmie]

Mignon, intelligent, drôle, des personnages fascinants, attachants et absurdes : l'un de mes favoris de mon enfance (ma copie est dans un état à force d'être relue...) A conseiller à tous les enfants dès qu'ils savent lire!

[Daniel]

Because I read it, it's awesome.