The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine by Philip Stead and Mark Twain

The origin of this book is more interesting than its story.  Mark Twain mentioned in one of his journals that his kid's would always bug him to tell a story before they went to bed.  Once when the family was in Paris, the story Twain told was so good he wrote some notes about it so that he could write it up later.  Recently some Twain scholars found the notes, but they were pretty sketchy and incomplete.  They contracted Philip Stead to fill in and complete the story and Erin Stead to do the illustrations.

The story itself is pretty random.  It reminds me of the stories my husband used to make up for my kids.  Johnny 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 illustrated with colored pictures throughout.  I wasn't thrilled with the audio recording.  It was full cast, but the producers were not 100% consistent with which actors where reading which parts.  It was fairly distracting.  This book got several starred reviews, but I think it is because of where it came from instead of its actual content. (2017, 151 p.)