A strawberry pie-obsessed young boy named Little Tom Drum gets quite the surprise when he steals downstairs on the night before his birthday and gobbles up the pie his mother made for the big day. Afflicted with three mouths - presumably as punishment for being such a greedy boy? - he is confined to the house by his parents, given a private tutor, and eventually develops into a talented inventor. Then one day, with the help of a wish machine and some local children, Tom is restored to his old eight-year-old self...

Given author Nancy Willard's many folk and fairy-tale retellings - my personal favorite is her Hudson Valley version of Beauty and the Beast - I think it safe to say that the name of the eponymous hero of The Three Mouths of Little Tom Drum is a reference to Tom Thumb, the mischievous pint-sized protagonist of the first English-language fairy-tale ever recorded (in 1621). Although Willard's Tom is not the size of a thumb, he certainly does get himself into a scrape! All that said, although this reference will be of interest to folklore enthusiasts, I found myself somewhat ambivalent about the actual story here. I see online reviewers were put off by Willard's decision to have Tom Drum hidden away by his parents, as this is not the proper course of action to take, with children who look different from their peers. I wasn't particularly bothered by this, as it's clear that there is a fairy-tale element to Willard's story, and that it is not meant to be taken as a realistic narrative. On the other hand, illustrator Kevin Hawkes does dedicate the book to homeschoolers, so take that as you will. For my part, I just found the story a bit scattered, with too many disparate elements - the three-mouth punishment, the wish machine, the inventions, the social exclusion, etc. - that didn't seem to quite fit together in one organic whole. The artwork, as is always the case with Hawkes, was very appealing, but all in all, this isn't one I would particularly recommend. ( )

Strange fairy-tale like story about the consequences of lacking self-control. ( )