09.27.06
Cricket 34/1: Thoughts
This was a great issue of Cricket! It has a fabulous fantasy map on the cover drawn specially for Cricket by David Wyatt. Inside are three stories based on the map by three very different authors - Lloyd Alexander, Tamora Pierce and Nancy Etchemendy. My favorite was Alexander’s “The Legend of the Seventh Wall”, but both of the others were excellent as well. I really liked Pierce’s protagonist, she was a good character. I love that Cricket did this “shared world experiment” and I’m almost tempted to write a story based on the map myself and submit it for the monthly contest. The map really is beautiful. I wish I could buy a copy without a barcode and magazine title on it (or even just one without the barcode, since the Cricket logo is pretty and doesn’t cover anything up).
I enjoyed the other parts of the issue this month as well. The “Cricket and Ladybug” comic strip story was very cute (I always like seeing Silvery, Jim and Elvis too!). “How Otto Brought the Sun Back to Plov” was cute and funny, although also extremely silly! I really liked “Amy’s Metaphor”. It was interesting and rather sweet. The end of “Mama and Lady Washington” was just as good as the beginning! Mama was a great character and fun to read about. I’m glad the ending was as satisfying as the beginning was funny. The piece following it about the death of the “horse-and-buggy days” was really well done as well. I even liked most of the contest winners. The presidential chair and the fire were my favorites.
This was a great issue. I adore that map and I might just end up using it for something!