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Three hilarious, quirky tales about a young city girl''s adventures big and small, from taking a taxi to meeting the president. Lore Segal''s classic children''s book tells three stories about Mitzi and her family, whose lives unfold within a gritty and yet dreamy cityscape of stoops and row houses that seem to have emerged from a time out of time. In the first story, Mitzi dresses up her baby brother and sets out with him to visit their grandparents, a venturesome undertaking that takes a curious turn when a key piece of information proves missing. In the second, Mitzi''s whole family falls sick, but a fool-proof remedy rides in to the rescue. In the last, the president comes to town and Mitzi''s day is made. Lore Segal''s droll dialogue and off-kilter storytelling are beautifully complemented by Harriet Pincus’s unnervingly earnest and goofy underground comic-book style illustrations, which won the praise of Maurice Sendak. These are stories about childhood independence and family closeness that capture childhood in all its puzzlement, resourcefulness, unsentimental wonder.
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"A must!" School Library Journal
"Thanks to Lore Segal's antic words, and Harriet Pincus's antic pictures, children will find Tell Me a Mitzi a hilarious picnic." Publishers Weekly
"Author and illustrator have caught the essence of childhood in this captivating picture book. The three stories mix fantasy with reality and are told with naturalness and warmth. The illustrations, so filled with details and surprises they invite repeated scrutiny, have verity and vitality, poignancy and endearing humor." Booklist, starred review
"A remarkable joint tour de force." The Washington Post Book World
"This is possibly one of the funniest books in print." The Saturday Review
"The fantasy is as real as tomorrow's ice cream cone, the three Mitzi stories more than bull's-eyes. . . . A triumph." Kirkus
"[The first book I fell in love with] was a children's book called Tell Me a Mitzi by Lore Segal and illustrated by Harriet Pincus. My mother used to read this to me every night before I went to sleep. It's a story about a little girl who takes her baby brother out on adventures around the city while their parents are sleeping. I loved it because it was about the pleasures of radical independence and the discovery of the world. And because I so deeply loved my little brother. To this day, my mother still calls me 'Mitzi.'" Ottessa Moshfegh
"Tell Me a Mitzi hums with the Sendakian weirdness of its era ... all 'family stories,' those quirky episodes from childhood that children love to hear told about themselves ... the entire amusing escapade unimaginable today." Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal
The stories are based in realism but then freely depart from it... and this structure calls to my mind my Jewish-immigrant grandpa who made up tales to tell his nine grandkids... It s now new again ready to charm the next generation. Pamela Rafalow Grossman, Kveller
