Review_CHILDREN’S
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In a twist on “The Elves and the Shoemaker,” a
tiny gardener gets some unexpected assistance from
a pair of comparatively large helpers (reviewed on
this page).
Picture Books
Hey Boy
Ben Strouse, illus. by Jennifer Phelan. Dog Ear
Publishing ( dogearpublishing.net), $18.95
(40p) ISBN 978-1-4575-3342-6
In a pensive story driven by allegorical
intent, a boy brings home a stray dog,
only to have his parents tell him that he
isn’t old enough to care for the animal.
The boy visits the dog at a shelter over
several years, assuring it that he is gaining
maturity: “I made my own lunch yesterday,” he says. “So you won’t be here
much longer.” The years continue to pass
(“I drove here,” he tells the dog one day),
and when the boy finally decides to take
the dog home, it has been adopted.
Although the dog “moved very slowly
now” and “couldn’t see very well” the two
reunite in a semblance of a happy ending.
Graceful in their simplicity, Phelan’s crisp
digital illustrations match the moody
atmosphere of the story with a pale palette
spiked with orange elements (a ball, a
field of flowers) that highlight the love
between boy and dog. With its melancholy tone and focus on the passage of
time, Strouse’s story will remind some
readers of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving
Tree—like that book, it can be read as a
portrait of either selflessness or selfishness. All ages. (BookLife)
I Will Chomp You!
Jory John, illus. by Bob Shea. Random,
$17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-385-38986-0
It’s by now a familiar metafictive
device—the bully inside the book who
threatens readers with certain doom. “If
you turn any more pages... I will chomp
you, buster!” growls a blue monster that
Shea (the Dinosaur vs. series) gives mas-
sive jack-o-lantern jaws and menacing
charcoal eyebrows. He isn’t too scary,
though. For one thing, a rabbit, frog, and
bird hover close to the monster’s jaws
and—like readers—escape every
“Chomp!” “Well, I missed,” admits the
monster. “But I won’t miss again.”
Halfway through, he fesses up: “You’re
probably wondering why I’m so eager to
chase you away. Can you keep a secret? It’s
because I have all my cakes back here, at
the end of the book.” Tempting descrip-
tions and appetizing pictures à la a 1950s
dessert cookbook follow: “Cakes with
sprinkles. Cakes with chocolate.” There’s
more desperate chomping as the monster
obliterates his stash before readers can get
to it. Nothing’s as fun as the dopey evil-
doer who can’t win, and John’s (Goodnight
Already!) comedy makes this a surefire
read-aloud for any crowd of cake-lovers.
Ages 3–7. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers
House. (Aug.)
; The Little Gardener
Emily Hughes. Nobrow/Flying Eye (Consortium,
dist.), $17.95 (40p) ISBN 978-1-909263-43-7
Unfolding on a more intimate scale
than her debut, Wild (2013), Hughes’s
story stars a diminutive gardener in a
straw hat and overalls who struggles to
keep up with the weeds in his garden.
Since he’s the size of a mouse, he has to
chop them down like trees, and it’s slow
going. Hughes paints a single, magnifi-
cent close-up of the scarlet zinnia that’s
the boy’s only success: “It was alive and
wonderful. It gave the gardener hope and
it made him work even harder.” Exhausted,
he falls asleep, breathing a fervent wish
through the window of his straw hut: “I
wish I had a bit of help.” The glorious
zinnia draws the attention of two human
children; when the gardener wakes, the
weeds are gone, and the garden is full of
bloom. In this inversion of “The Elves and
the Shoemaker,” the big and strong help
the small and weak, and the gardener
never discovers how his garden has
become so beautiful. It’s a tender meta-
phor for of the miracle of gardening.
Hughes’s rich, rhythmic storytelling
voice and dark tapestry spreads carry
perennial magic. Ages 3–7. Agent: Stephen
Barr, Writers House. (Aug.)
Ragweed’s Farm Dog Handbook
Anne Vittur Kennedy. Candlewick, $15.99
(32p) ISBN 978-0-7636-7417-5
Working in cheery acrylics and once
again mining the comedic potential of a
setting that teeters between bucolic and
chaotic, Kennedy (The Farmer’s Away!
Baa! Neigh!) introduces Ragweed, a wiry,
googly-eyed farm dog whose loopy logic
and single-mindedness bring to mind a
canine version of Parks & Recreation’s Andy
Dwyer. Eager to mentor future farm dogs,
Ragweed offers a how-to guide essentially
built around one rule: don’t do anything
that’s “not your job.” (“The rooster wakes
the farmer early in the morning. That’s his
job. That’s not your job.”) But if you do
break that prime directive, say by rolling
in the mud like a pig or sitting in the
chickens’ nests, worry not: there’s usually
a biscuit or three in it for you, especially if
you can persuade the farmer you were just
keeping the chickens safe from a fox. This
structure, repeated throughout with
clever variations (eating grass like a cow
means throwing up a biscuit, “and you
can eat that one again”), makes Kennedy’s
hero more endearing with every page
turn. Ages 3–7. (Aug.)
; The Tea Party in the Woods
Akiko Miyakoshi. Kids Can, $16.95 (32p) ISBN
978-1-77138-107-9
With great delicacy and keen draftsmanship, Japanese artist Miyakoshi
weaves fairy-tale elements into a dreamy
and sometimes haunting story. In the
manner of Little Red Riding Hood,
Kikko sets off through the snowy woods
to her grandmother’s with the pie her
father has forgotten; she spies him
walking far ahead of her and follows him
to a house she’s never seen before. In a
genuinely spooky scene, she peeps
through the window to discover that the
man in the hat and overcoat she has followed isn’t her father—it’s an imposing
bear in a three-piece suit. Kikko is ush-
Children’s/ YA
