SCATTERBRAIN SAM

Faulkner’s (Black Belt, not reviewed, etc.) art waxes more riotously exuberant than ever in Jackson’s heavily modified Welsh folktale. Though Sam seems happy enough being a total doofus, the town gossip finally wears him down to the point of asking a “widder” conversant with “lotions and potions and whatnot,” for some smarts. Brawny, brown-skinned, and distinctly larger than life, she sets to stirring up a huge pot of Glue Stew to stick Sam’s brains together, sending him out for ingredients that she describes in impenetrable (to Sam, at least) riddles. Luckily, Sam has a riddle-solving friend in fresh-faced barnstormer Maizie Mae. Faulkner turns even the hills and buildings into interested spectators as Sam, a Hugh Grant lookalike, shuttles back and forth between the Widder’s barber-pole-striped lighthouse and enlightening, increasingly romantic rendezvous with Maizie Mae. Finished at last, the Glue Stew spills gooily through town, bringing the young folk to a satisfying clinch in front of the church door. Belly laughs and bravos will punctuate every reading of this fresh, funny recasting. (Picture book/folktale. 7-9)