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Ugly Pie


by Lisa Wheeler and Heather Solomon
Harcourt, 2010. Unpaged. Picture Book.

When Ol' Bear wakes up one morning "with a hankerin' for pie. Not just any pie. Ugly Pie," he can't find the proper ingredients at his house so he starts around the neighborhood asking for ugly pie. Grampa Grizzle has pumpkin pie. Nope. Ma Hickory has rhubarb pie. Nope. Even Sweet Cicely's honey pie doesn't make the grade. But at each house, Ol' Bear also picks up what his neighbors have to share: bumpy brown walnuts, sour green apples, and wrinkled red raisins which, combined with his own sweet molasses, make up into a lip-smackin' Ugly Pie. Solomon's colorful, page-filling pictures perfectly portray Ol Bear's cheery spirit and when at the end of the story all his neighbors and animal friends show up for a piece of truly ugly pie, a grand time is had by all. (An ugly-pie recipe ends the book. Myself, I would have gone for the rhubarb.)

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