Customer comments on this selection.
 Bongo Lary
As a bongo-playing grandpa named Lary (just ONE "r" in MY name), I loved it!
 What kid knows what a beatnik is?
I had read my son other Larry books, and found this one at the library so I checked it out. As described above, it's about beatniks. Why would a child care or know what a beatnik is? The dialog is dumb, the blueberry juice is puzzling, and this book had no point. Skip it and pick another Larry book.
 Beatnik Bear...
Larry is a bear. Larry is also a beatnik. He snaps his fingers, wears berets and sunglasses, and recites poetry. His best piece of poetry, entitled "Are Muffins Like Fish", ends with the lines "I like blueberry muffins but there are no blueberry fish." Larry is just cool. Not much more to say. Cool. He gets in trouble when he plays in the park after eight o'clock and has to return to the hotel Larry. The whole family - he lives with Martin, Semolina, and Mildred - turns cool and they hang out at the Cafe Mama Bear which is crammed with cool bears of all different types. Larry has the opportunity to play bongos for Big Bear. It's Larry's big break. Of course everything is cool in the end.
This is classic Pinkwater. Very likable, but not easy to determine why it's likeable. It just is. Also, it's coming back into print in paperback soon. A very good thing.
The Bear(th) of the Cool
Larry, the bongo-playing bear, is the epitome of cool in this colorful story by the renowned Daniel Pinkwater. One of Larry's credos is "Distrust Authority." Pinkwaater, with unblinking nerve, steals the famous Brando line from the "Wild Bunch": "Well, I am rebelling," Larry said. "You are rebelling? What are you rebelling against?" "What have you got," Larry asked. There are similarly fine touches throughout, the narrator's wife is named Semolina, Larry write a profoundly unprofound beat poem called "Are Muffins Like Fish?" (which culminates in "I like blueberry muffins but there are no blueberry fish."), and paints an abstract painting of muffins and fish, and, finally, Larry goes to the "Care Mama Bear," where he bongos behind "Big Bear's" vocals. The only inauthentic touch is that Big Bear's jazz opus is really the blues. There are vivid, colorful pictures throughout that capture Larry's abundant cool. Various artistic techniques give a vibrant immediacy that compliments this good-natured and very fun story.
Yeah!
Daniel Pinkwater rocks! This is a great example of his humor -- bears drinking blueberry juice and doing beat poetry in coffeehouses. Yeah!
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