Mrs. McCool and the Giant Cuhullin: An Irish Tale
By Jessica Souhami
Holt, $16.95
ISBN 080506852X

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Fightin' Irish: will brains beat brawn?

One of the most striking things about Jessica Souhami's new book Mrs. McCool and the Giant Cuhullin is the collagework. Her art always carries a simple, bold, childlike quality that conveys movement and change and humor. A sophistication surfaces through the simplicity of her pictures in a way that makes her books a visual treat for both children and adults.

The same sophistication and simplicity hold true for her stories, even though there are few children in them! Souhami focuses on retelling folk tales, legends and songs from many cultures, such as No Dinner!, a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, The Leopard's Drum (a West African folktale) and Old MacDonald (my favorite way of singing the song). Souhami's new story, Mrs. McCool is particularly sweet. When the Giant Cuhullin (who has a magic finger) decides he wants to defeat his last challenger, Finn McCool (who can see the future by sucking his thumb), he goes off in search of the man, only to find Mrs. McCool lying in wait for him, cool as a cucumber tea-sandwich, ready to protect her husband and vanquish their foe.

By using her brains instead of brawn, Mrs. McCool sets the giant to superhuman tasks, telling him that Finn McCool does these sorts of things "all the time!" She outsmarts Cuhullin while her husband watches from the cradle, pretending to be the baby. When Cuhullin sets eyes on this gigantic, superhuman infant, he decides he has had enough, that surely Finn McCool is a bigger man than he in all ways. The "baby" has the last laugh when Cuhullin's magic finger gets too close to his new teeth.

In the end, the Giant Cuhullin shrinks, and Finn and Mrs. McCool dance, and all's right with the world. "Big is big," says Mrs. McCool to her husband, "but brains are better!" An author's note explains the origin of the story and the characters -- "two of the greatest heroes of Celtic legend."

Deborah Wiles' first two books for children, Freedom Summer and Love, Ruby Lavender, were published in 2001