Martha Davis Beck (The Five Owls, March/April 1997 (Vol. 11, No. 4))
With the plight of neglected children a persistent sore spot in our consciousness--and a frequent serious theme in children's books--this comic tale of a resourceful runaway orphan is sweet medicine. Written by the versatile Diane Stanley, Saving Sweetness is set in the Wild West and features a cast of types. The story's tone and the unambiguous character of its players are conveyed in colorful rural vernacular by the narrator, the kindhearted sheriff in the dusty Texas outpost where the action is set. Sweetness is the name of the "ittiest bittiest" resident of an orphanage run by mean old Mrs. Sump, a woman "nasty enough to scare night into day." She disciplines the children by having them scrub the floor with toothbrushes. When Sweetness runs away, the sheriff is called into pursuit, to rescue her from the desert and the likely clutches of the outlaw Coyote Pete, a character "as mean as an acre of rattlesnakes." The humor builds as the sheriff, an absentminded fellow, neglects to bring food or water along on his sojourn through the desert, and is repeatedly "saved" by the tyke he is seeking. She appears first with a canteen of water; later she toasts marshmallows for him on a fire; finally she knocks out Coyote Pete with a large rock, just as he is about to shoot the sheriff. Through all this, the sheriff appears not to realize who's doing the rescuing. But Sweetness has the last word: she convinces the sheriff to become her Pa. G. Brian Karas's distinctive artwork has a warmth and expressiveness here that provide a perfect match for the tale. The illustrations feature his trademark melon-headed angular figures, but the facial expressions and gestures convey precise emotions, and each page holds visual interest through the combination of soft pencil sketching, dramatic silhouettes, and atmospheric photo and cut-paper collage in earth tones of gold, sage green, and many satisfying shades of brown. Saving Sweetness is a tall tale shrunk down to a modest size, just right for relating the plight of a plucky little girl, and for tickling the funny bones of readers in the mood for a Wild West yarn. 1996, Putnam, 8 x 10, 32 pages, $15.95. Ages 5 to 8.

Deborah Stevenson (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November 1996 (Vol. 50, No. 3))
Little orphan Sweetness has run away from Mrs. Sump's orphanage, and grim Mrs. Sump has enlisted the kindly sheriff's help in retrieving her. The sheriff plods along the cactus-studded plains in search of Sweetness, who keeps turning up whenever the sheriff is in dire need (short of water, hungry in the night, at the point of outlaw Coyote Pete's gun) and providing assistance. Each time the sheriff proudly proclaims he's saved her but doesn't quite get her drift when she complains about returning to the orphanage, so she takes off yet again, until finally he understands his duty and agrees to adopt her and the other seven orphans. This is tall-talin' western comedy, filled with sagebrush-flavored imagery ("She fell on me like Grandma on a chicken snake") and ridin'-the-range dialect ("Now you can't go around shootin' folks and scarin' orphans, and I's here to arrest you"). Even more amusing for young listeners will be the sheriff's blindness to Sweetness' total control over the situation: tying up Coyote Pete with her hair ribbons, she's reminiscent of Ogden Nash's Isabel. Karas' usual dot-eyed, spiky-featured figures here roam a range made vivid by subtle collagic inclusion of tinted and colored photographs, so that Sweetness lights out amid genuine scrubland and the hand-drawn townspeople frequent real buildings. An occasional youngster may wonder why the sheriff has no horse, but that's less important than the fact that he has Sweetness and her seven comrades, a comfy rocking chair, and a terrifically enjoyable story. R*--Highly recommended as a book of special distinction. (c) Copyright 1996, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1996, Putnam, 32p, $15.95. Ages 5-8 yrs.