Bear and Duck. By Katy
Hudson. Harper. $17.99.
My Bike. By Byron Barton.
Greenwillow/HarperCollins. $16.99.
Some picture books just
exude charm, while being simple enough in the stories they tell to delight the
youngest readers – and even pre-readers who are just starting to pick out a
word or two. The message of Katy Hudson’s Bear
and Duck is a tried-and-true one: be who you are, be the best “you” you can
be, and don’t try to be anyone or anything else. But Hudson’s story is so
winningly illustrated that even kids who have encountered the theme before will
enjoy it all over again here. Bear has an identity crisis: tired of needing to
sleep all winter, wear a fur coat in summer, and deal with the angry bees when
he tries to get some honey to eat, Bear decides to become – a duck. He sees
ducks waddling by and decides that they have a better life than he does, so why
shouldn’t he join them? And he does, hilariously walking in the middle of the
line of ducks without being noticed at all until he lets out a presumably
bear-size “quack.” Duck, leading the line of ducklings, tells Bear he does not
belong with them, but when Duck sees how sad that makes Bear feel (and look),
Duck pulls out a handy book called How to
Be the Perfect Duck and agrees to help Bear follow the book’s
recommendations. Soon Bear is learning about nest-building, egg-sitting,
swimming, and – uh-oh – flying. Things do not go well, but they go badly in
such amusing ways that kids will delight in Bear’s expressions, notably those
in which his tongue hangs out as he climbs a tree to get Duck an apple.
Eventually and inevitably, Bear realizes that being a duck is harder than it
looks – at least for a bear – and resigns himself to staying a bear after all.
But Duck reassures him that he makes “a really good bear and a really good
friend,” so all ends happily, with Duck and Bear sharing some Bear-procured honey
while bees fly about, perhaps being angry but not displaying any ire toward the
pair of friends. The combined messages of self-awareness and friendship blend
beautifully here, and the illustrations are, well, picture-perfect for the
story.
Even simpler in concept and
appearance, Byron Barton’s My Bike
features drawings that almost look as if they were made by a child in the 4-8
age group, for whom both this book and Bear
and Duck are intended. Barton’s story here is barely a story at all,
beginning, “I am Tom. This is my bicycle,” and then showing the basic parts of
a bike. Tom is then seen riding his bike to work – he looks like a child but is
clearly supposed to be an adult. Tom rides his bike past vehicles that have
some strange aspects to them: one is a truck marked “circus,” another a bus in
which a dog sits in one passenger seat, another a bus in which both a dog and a cat are seated. Tom
rides past people heading for the circus, past the crowds going into the tents,
and deeper into the circus – past lions and tigers and elephants and the
ringmaster. So it seems that Tom’s work is at the circus – but what does he do?
Barton reveals that in the last few pages, showing Tom getting ready for his
job – which turns out to have something to do with a bike (more or less). The
simplicity of story and childlike drawings combine to make this easy-to-read
book (with text in very large type) an easy-to-follow and easy-to-understand
one as well. And the small mystery of what Tom does after he goes past all those
other vehicles and people will have pre-readers and young readers trying to
figure out how the book will end – which means they will enjoy the pleasant and
amusing surprise at its conclusion.
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