Editor’s Note: Features new books that are either by authors, set in the Pine Tree State or have other local ties.

A MOOSE AND A LOBSTER WALKED INTO A BAR…, by John McDonald, Islandport Press, Frenchboro, Maine; 2003, $14.95.

Comedy, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Some people think storyteller John McDonald is funny. Some think the Humble Farmer is funny. Neither has ever made me laugh and I am the easiest audience in history. Ask anyone who has ever had the seat beside me in a movie.

What do I know?

McDonald is the founder of the Maine Storyteller Festival and his column is published by newspapers across the state. Maybe I am just jealous. In his introduction, McDonald said he wants no part of one-liners or classic Las Vegas jokes. Instead he wants real life (well, maybe) stories.

When McDonald published a slew of his columns in “A Moose and a Lobster Walked into a Bar…,” some critics gushed.

Jeff Butland of the Cumberland Historical Society said John “does the citizens of our state a tremendous service with his witty and colorful stories drawn from Maine’s hearty Yankee traditions. He has the enviable ability to capture the imagination in all of us.”

Down East magazine, which hardly ever says a bad word about anyone, said “John McDonald has become a masterful practitioner of this distinctive style of Maine storytelling. This book is more proof of his droll sense of fun.”

I don’t get it. Maybe the stories are funnier delivered in an exaggerated Down East accent.

All right. I laughed once in the dozen stories I read. It was the one about the fall survey of the Maine/New Hampshire border, which discovered that one farm thought to be in Maine was actually in New Hampshire. When they told the old farmer, he said “Well, thank you, young feller for that news and thank the good Lord, too. You know, I was just sitting here wondering how I was going to make it through another Maine winter.” – by Emmet Meara

Emmet Meara writes a weekly column for the Bangor Daily News’ Saturday Style section. He can be reached at emmetmeara@msn.com.

WHEN I’M WITH YOU, by Elizabeth Elder, illustrated by Leslie Mansmann, Islandport Press, Frenchboro, Maine, 2003, $15.95.

Visiting the shore, children often notice all kinds of wildlife and they often delight in tracing the outlines of a paw print or watching a bed of reeds slowly spring to life.

Two such curious children in Elizabeth Elder’s “When I’m With You” walk to the seaside for a picnic lunch and realize they are not the only ones who frequent the shore. The boy and girl are excited by their discovery that animals are near, but they are also wary of meeting the animals that have left these marks behind. They take comfort, however, in each other’s company and enjoy the rest of their outing.

Elder has chosen a well-weathered theme in children’s literature by addressing the need for children to feel secure in uncertain moments. The attractive watercolor illustrations of the Maine coast by Leslie Mansmann propel the story and also help to quell any doubts in young readers’ minds that the children are encountering a foreboding environment.

For the reader learns later in the story that the animals are just as wary of the children as they watch them from their hiding places along the shore.

The author also employs the use of rhyme as part of the children’s dialogue while they explore. At times she chooses an obvious word to make a line rhyme with a previous one. But this word choice produces the effect of hesitant speech when the children encounter the unfamiliar.

Overall, this book is excellent for curious children because it will establish a healthy balance of both suspense and security. – by Amanda Dumond

Amanda Dumond is a staff writer at the Aroostook Republican newspaper in Caribou and a former intern at the Bangor Daily News.