cover image Knick Knack Paddywhack

Knick Knack Paddywhack

Paul Zelinsky. Dutton Books, $18.99 (8pp) ISBN 978-0-525-46908-7

Three favorite school chants get the royal treatment from a trio of children's books veterans. Caldecott Medalist Paul O. Zelinsky brilliantly reimagines the song as a boy's daydream, Knick-Knack Paddywhack!: A Moving Parts Book, with engineering by Andrew Baron. Youngsters lift a flap to ""Give the dog a bone""; under the flap, the ""old man [comes] rolling home"" on a bicycle. The focus of the spread features a boy in striped pajamas who, when readers tug a pull-tab, reveals the old man holding the numeral one (and ""play[ing] knick-knack"" on the boy's thumb). The final spread shows 10 little old men rolling down the hillside.