The Pushcart War begins when a certain truck driver by the name of Mack smashes his truck into Morris the Florist’s flower cart and hurls Morris into a nearby pickle jar. The reason for this “accident” was that the three major truck companies had decided to take over the city streets, (a feat in which they were already close to achieving) starting with the pushcarts. This plan of theirs was to smash all of the pushcarts and then get the automobiles. As the trucks begin to become more and more aggressive, the pushcart peddlers decide to have a meeting at Maxie Hammerman’s (The pushcart “King”) shop. At his shop, the peddlers decide that the trucks are provoking a war, and they at once begin to prepare for it. They elect Maxie as the head of the army and Old Anna is now General Anna. Once they have decided to wage a war, they now realize that this is more complicated than they thought at the time. It was Carlos (Cartons Flattened and Removed) who had the idea to shoot the trucks tires with pea-shooters. Carlos explains that it was his son who gave him the idea, as his little boy has a very clever pea-shooter that not only shoots peas, but also pins stuck in peas, Carlos explains that the pushcart peddlers would be able to “kill” the trucks with these pea-shooters, and so The Pea-Shooter Campaign (Phase 1) begins. Everything goes as planned, that is, until Frank the Flower is captured and is interrogated, until he admits that he shot all the trucks, (which of course he didn’t). Who will win, the menacing trucks, or the innocent pushcarts, find out in this amazing saga, (which I have now read twice). Also check out The Toothpaste Millionaire, also by Jean Merrill
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(Illustrations by Ronni Solbert)
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