The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine

The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine
by Mark Twain and Philip Stead
Doubleday Books for Young Readers, 2017. Fiction. 151 p.
Have you ever wondered what kind of bedtime stories Mark Twain might have told his own children? Once when his family was in Paris, Twain told a story he liked so well that he made some notes about it so that he could write it up later. Recently some Twain scholars found the notes, but they were incomplete. They contracted Philip Stead to fill in and complete the story and Erin Stead to do the illustrations. The result is a story about a boy, Johnny, who lives with an overbearing father. When he father asks him to go to town and sell his pet chicken for some food, Johnny starts on an adventure that includes magic beans, talking animals, and a spoiled rotten prince. The book is full of Twain and Stead's wry humor and is illustrated with wonderful colored pictures throughout. It is available from the Library in print, as an ebook, on CD, and as an audiobook download.

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