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Two Sticks
Maybelle wanted SOME drum,
A kettle, snare, not humdrum,
A drum-dee-dum-dee-dum drum,
Oh, any funky fun drum!
But all she has is two sticks - her "tried and trusty true sticks." And so, on tables, chairs, and even her parents' bedroom door, Maybelle takes those sticks and clicks and clacks them, whacks and smacks them - until her sleepy parents STOP! But can Maybelle stop? Even coming face-to-face with eleven toothy crocodiles doesn't deter plucky Maybelle. She keeps her cool - and her beat - charming those reptiles until she finally gets a real drum of her own.
Vibrant art brings a spirited Maybelle to life in this read-aloud gem that pulses with humor and irresistible rhythm and rhyme.
A kettle, snare, not humdrum,
A drum-dee-dum-dee-dum drum,
Oh, any funky fun drum!
But all she has is two sticks - her "tried and trusty true sticks." And so, on tables, chairs, and even her parents' bedroom door, Maybelle takes those sticks and clicks and clacks them, whacks and smacks them - until her sleepy parents STOP! But can Maybelle stop? Even coming face-to-face with eleven toothy crocodiles doesn't deter plucky Maybelle. She keeps her cool - and her beat - charming those reptiles until she finally gets a real drum of her own.
Vibrant art brings a spirited Maybelle to life in this read-aloud gem that pulses with humor and irresistible rhythm and rhyme.
32 pages, Hardcover
First published February 20, 2007
10 people want to read
About the author
Orel Protopopescu
7 books4 followersI grew up with two older sisters in Hempstead, Long Island, a town considered, throughout the 1950s, to be a model of integration. My mother was a dedicated third-grade teacher in an inner-city school. I devoured all the books she brought me. My father, a lawyer who preferred bridge and backgammon to the law, taught me chess and told stories that made me laugh. He was born in Russia and named me for a Russian city, something that I was often teased about at school. It was the Cold War. We had frequent air-raid drills where we had to crouch down in the hallways with our coats over our heads. I was also teased for being the only kid in school who’d skipped the fourth grade.
Still, I loved my neighborhood, with its people of every color and nationality. Our friends from Jamaica taught us the limbo. Gospel music spilled out of the Baptist church, jazz and rhythm and blues from many houses. I rode my bike everywhere, making up poems in my head. I recently wrote a poem that won a prize in Oberon poetry magazine’s 2006 contest, judged by Louis Simpson. The opening lines paint a picture of me in high school: “Where is the girl who forgot to eat, / who thought nothing of riding a bike / thirty miles to Manhattan after school, / who recited poems in the grass by candlelight, / chanted hymns of praise to trees and stars, / read books as she wrote them in her sleep . . .”
By the middle of the 1960s, our family alone was integrating our street and I had a keener awareness of the inequalities in American life. I joined the Long Island Congress of Racial Equality and picketed Hempstead Town Hall wearing a sign that said, “Slums Are the Shame of Hempstead.” You can see that fifteen-year-old me in a book Lillian Smith wrote about the civil rights movement: Our Faces, Our Words. Today, I’m still an activist.
When I was sixteen, my mother died of cancer. By then, my father had lost his job. That was a terrible time. But in my senior year, I won a debating contest and ended up as a delegate to the New York Herald Tribune World Youth Forum. We were taken all over Europe, meeting heads of state. I met the Bolivian delegate and, after graduate school, married him.
We have two daughters, born in 1978 and 1982. They are two reasons I began writing for children. Before, I’d worked as a storyteller and a writer and producer of educational films.
I started my teaching career at my kitchen table, leading a writing club for my older daughter and her friends. Soon, my first two picture books were published. The second, The Perilous Pit (illustrated by Jacqueline Chwast), was a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Children’s Book of 1993. My book of translations of Chinese poetry (coauthored by Siyu Liu), A Thousand Peaks: Poems from China, was selected for the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age 2003 list. Two Sticks (illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf) appeared on Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s Spring 2007 list. This humorous picture book in rhymed verse grew from the music of my childhood, as did my forthcoming book, Thelonious Mouse, which I look forward to working on with my editor, Melanie Kroupa.
Of all the reviews of my writing and teaching, the one I treasure most came from a former student, Christine Slatest, now an English teacher. A poem she wrote in fifth grade appears in my book Metaphors & Similes You Can Eat and 12 More Great Poetry Writing Lessons. Christine wrote, “My interest in writing poetry began in Mrs. Protopopescu’s workshops. Her visits to my elementary school changed my life.” An author/teacher can’t hope for more than that.
Still, I loved my neighborhood, with its people of every color and nationality. Our friends from Jamaica taught us the limbo. Gospel music spilled out of the Baptist church, jazz and rhythm and blues from many houses. I rode my bike everywhere, making up poems in my head. I recently wrote a poem that won a prize in Oberon poetry magazine’s 2006 contest, judged by Louis Simpson. The opening lines paint a picture of me in high school: “Where is the girl who forgot to eat, / who thought nothing of riding a bike / thirty miles to Manhattan after school, / who recited poems in the grass by candlelight, / chanted hymns of praise to trees and stars, / read books as she wrote them in her sleep . . .”
By the middle of the 1960s, our family alone was integrating our street and I had a keener awareness of the inequalities in American life. I joined the Long Island Congress of Racial Equality and picketed Hempstead Town Hall wearing a sign that said, “Slums Are the Shame of Hempstead.” You can see that fifteen-year-old me in a book Lillian Smith wrote about the civil rights movement: Our Faces, Our Words. Today, I’m still an activist.
When I was sixteen, my mother died of cancer. By then, my father had lost his job. That was a terrible time. But in my senior year, I won a debating contest and ended up as a delegate to the New York Herald Tribune World Youth Forum. We were taken all over Europe, meeting heads of state. I met the Bolivian delegate and, after graduate school, married him.
We have two daughters, born in 1978 and 1982. They are two reasons I began writing for children. Before, I’d worked as a storyteller and a writer and producer of educational films.
I started my teaching career at my kitchen table, leading a writing club for my older daughter and her friends. Soon, my first two picture books were published. The second, The Perilous Pit (illustrated by Jacqueline Chwast), was a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Children’s Book of 1993. My book of translations of Chinese poetry (coauthored by Siyu Liu), A Thousand Peaks: Poems from China, was selected for the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age 2003 list. Two Sticks (illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf) appeared on Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s Spring 2007 list. This humorous picture book in rhymed verse grew from the music of my childhood, as did my forthcoming book, Thelonious Mouse, which I look forward to working on with my editor, Melanie Kroupa.
Of all the reviews of my writing and teaching, the one I treasure most came from a former student, Christine Slatest, now an English teacher. A poem she wrote in fifth grade appears in my book Metaphors & Similes You Can Eat and 12 More Great Poetry Writing Lessons. Christine wrote, “My interest in writing poetry began in Mrs. Protopopescu’s workshops. Her visits to my elementary school changed my life.” An author/teacher can’t hope for more than that.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 4, 2014
This was a random book my son grabbed at the library, probably based on the crocodiles on the cover. He loves them!
Well, I loved this book! I will definitely read it to him multiple times before we have to give it back and hope that I can find the best rhythm for the text. I think I had it by the end, but didn't quite get it at the beginning. The repetitive end words with the shot-gun text are very evocative of the subject: a girl with two sticks who likes to drum on everything and wants nothing more than a real drum to bang on. The Crocodiles help convince her parents that maybe they should just get her that drum!
The illustrations are delightful, bright and full of life.
Well, I loved this book! I will definitely read it to him multiple times before we have to give it back and hope that I can find the best rhythm for the text. I think I had it by the end, but didn't quite get it at the beginning. The repetitive end words with the shot-gun text are very evocative of the subject: a girl with two sticks who likes to drum on everything and wants nothing more than a real drum to bang on. The Crocodiles help convince her parents that maybe they should just get her that drum!
The illustrations are delightful, bright and full of life.
October 24, 2017
This book had very attractive illustrations and an interesting story line. There's a lot of repetition and the sentences are simple. This would be a wonderful read for first grade.
November 10, 2017
This is such a fun book to read!
June 1, 2009
I understand that the author was trying to illustrate drumming rhythm in the text, but what happened instead was a book that was difficult to read. Unfortunately this is the kind of book elementary teachers often assign to struggling readers which only acerbates the difficulty the child has in reading Nonsense syllables, mixed with impossible to say tongue twisters do not improve reading skills, only frustrate the reader. Because of the text, there was little variety from picture to picture in this book, causing boredom in the already frustrated reader. Not a good combination.
April 17, 2009
Okay, I have never read a children's story like this one and you can't just read it like a normal book. Which I don't mind infront of my girls, maybe I would feel a little silly reading it to the drum beat it is written in if I was infront of other moms but I think it is really fun. I love how the author creates the beat with the words, rhyme and meter. This isn't a book that very many people could write like Protpopescu can.
January 22, 2008
Infectious, if not a teeny bit grating. Nice rhythms with a bayou bent. The illustrations are wonderful. My little boys giggled at the sound of my "drum-dee-dum-dee-doo sticks" and could definitely relate to our heroine's penchant for noisemaking.
January 30, 2009
A little long for your average storytime. Love the rhyming rhythm of the text-- but it will take practice to read smoothly. I'm not sure how I would have the children use the rhythm sticks with this book... but I am sure there is a way.
December 1, 2010
Tanner 3 stars.
Max 5 stars -- he loves everything!
Lots of mouthfuls of words here ... fun to read once you're in the groove. Likely would have been a better rendering had I practiced reading this before reading it to the boys!
Max 5 stars -- he loves everything!
Lots of mouthfuls of words here ... fun to read once you're in the groove. Likely would have been a better rendering had I practiced reading this before reading it to the boys!
June 25, 2015
Maybelle has a fond love of her two sticks--especially beating on all kinds of sound making objects in her life. An overdose of rhymes, similar to Dr. Seuss, the story remains in tact and cleverly played.
Includes alligators and drums.
Includes alligators and drums.
July 10, 2015
My toddler loves this book, and I enjoy reading it to him. The rhyme scheme has a musical quality to it, pushing the story forward at a bouncing pace. Word repetition is used to reinforce the rhyme, but used well. The illustrations are beautiful and bring Maybelle's adventure to life.
February 4, 2017
VERY complex rhyme about a girl obsessed with drums and drumming. She drums her way out of her house and across the bayou, eventually coming face to face with some crocodiles.
Definitely needs some practice before using it for storytime, but it's really engaging, rhythmic, and fun.
Definitely needs some practice before using it for storytime, but it's really engaging, rhythmic, and fun.
October 7, 2008
A girl has two sticks and loves to drum even when her parents tell her to stop. Her drumming gets her in and out of trouble. Would be fun to use with crocodile clapper instrument.
October 24, 2010
A great rhyming story about one girl's quest for a drum of her own. Nice rhythmic text and fun illustrations.
December 3, 2011
Would be a great read/sing aloud so the kids can get the feel of the rhythm of the words that express the feel of drum beats.
December 27, 2011
There are aligators! Too many rhymes.
March 6, 2016
A little girl wants to drum so bad that she drums on everything, even alligators, in her quest to get her parents to buy her a drum. Very skit-skatty rhymes.
Nice illustrations.
Nice illustrations.
October 31, 2025
I haven't done this one for a live ST, but I think it would be fun. I probably won't arm my ST kids with actual sticks, but you do you.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews