Four Dollars and Fifty Cents

Four Dollars and Fifty Cents
By Eric A. Kimmel; illustrated by Glen Rounds.
Publisher: Holiday House, p1990, c1990
ISBN-13: 978-0-8234-0817-7ISBN-10: 0-8234-0817-5

Plot Summary:
Shorty Long owes money to just about everybody, and he owes $4.50 to the Widow Macrae who is bound and determined to get her man, I mean money. Shorty too is bound and determine to not pay what he owes to anybody! And to prove it, he plays “dead” but the Widow Macrae isn’t buying it, necessarily. She volunteers to bury Shorty, “appropriately” and then camps out to see if Shorty is really dead. Meanwhile, a band of outlaws arrive on the seen only to be scared out of their shorts when Shorty sits up and talks. They take off and Shorty is held to his original debt to Widow Macrae. But will he pay…. Read the book to find out.

Critical Analysis:
This book is a laugh at loud, western slingin’, cowboy rustling good fun. Simple in premise, a debt is owed and how to avoid the creditor. To some degree this book reminds me of some of those cowboy western movies I watched growing up, with all of the usual characters: rustlers, cowpokes, the barmaid/owner, and the slow dim-witted cowboy. Okay, not all cowboys are “dimwitted” (no offense meant, I’m a huge John Wayne, Lone Ranger fan). In fact, Shorty reminds me more of Pa Kettle than that of a traditional movie cowboy.

Awards and Reviews:
Horn Book starred (February, 1991) - "Rounds's outrageous, bold line-and-crayon drawings perfectly suit the tale's Western flavor. A fast-paced, funny story perfect for reading aloud."

Horn Book starred review

Illustrations:
Apparently the illustrations in this book our from crayon drawings, and at first glance, I didn’t even notice. But looking closer I can see how the coloring fell “outside of the lines.” Perhaps this concept would bother most people, but because the drawings are simple, not complex, with usually a single character on each page, you really do not notice that it is crayon-drawings. And even more, if the drawings were more detailed, I wonder if it would affect the storyline since this story is a “western” themed and outlaw-ish in nature.