THE KNEE-HIGH MAN
adapted by William Miller & illustrated by Roberta Glidden
A traditional African-American folktale retold by the author of Zora Hurston and the Chinaberry Tree (1994, not reviewed), about a little man who wants to become bigger, louder, and meaner than he is. The horse and the bull give him wrong-headed advice; he nearly abandons all hope before an owl shows him that everyone looks knee-high from the top of a tree. The moral is old, but its formulation here is unusually well-told, embellished with selected colloquialisms. The illustrations have a mysterious glassy glow; the knee-high man, however, doesn't really come across as knee-high. (Picture book. 5-9)