Thursday, August 22, 2024

*Animals should definitely not act like people (1980)

 *Animals should definitely not act like people by Judi Barrett is loads of fun. Drawings by Ron Barrett capture the silliness implied in the text. Each page shows a creature attempting a human activity. A worm uses both end of its wriggly body to hold up a dumbell, an octopus wears four baseball gloves, and a hippopotamus has a bathtub stuck to it's rear end. That hippo would "have to have a heap of help" to use a human bathtub! Each illustration is accompanied by a lot of alliteration. I love the giraffe standing at the top of a ladder attempting to paint its house. The last picture is startling. A variety of animals peer into a cage as if they are visitors in a zoo--and the reader is in the cage. 

*The Scarecrow's Hat (2001)

 * The Scarecrow's Hat by Ken Brown (2001) is an ingenious story. The title and cover art beckon the reader without a hint of what the s...