The Umbrella by Jan Brett (2004) is another narrative designed to display her beautiful illustrations. The plot is thin and repetitive, a vehicle for drawing the same creatures throughout the book. A boy of ambiguous age, Carlos, strolls into the rain forest to see what he can see. "'I'll be spotting a jaguar and a monkey, '" he calls back to his papa, and although we do, he does not. Carlos carries a large umbrella made of leaves, presumably because it rains in a rainforest. He sets the umbrella down so that he can climb a tree, leaving it available for local creatures to occupy. Jan Brett's opulent illustrations feature a dark palette in this story. I adore her art; however, her text doesn't hold my attention. I wonder if she's shared her artistic gift with other writers.
The Able Educator has Jan Brett's The Umbrella. territeach has The Umbrella Test and Vocab. The Climbing Grapevine has I See! A Walk through the Amazon Rainforest.
