At first glance, the illustrations may seem crude and dare some say, easy to create (shame on you!). Illustrator Christian Robinson used paint and collage with digital editing for the art and I am immensely enthralled with his skill. Pause, grunt, sigh, be gruff, be childlike… although you may think it looks simple this piece of art is complex in both plot and pictures! No getting off easy with a straight read through. One thing is for sure, when reading aloud, you must use intonation. I find the story to be captivating to any reader and an excellent lesson in reading facial expressions and situations. The combination of the spoken text and Robinson’s colorful and very expressive illustrations are a marvelous thing to behold. In her interview with Julie Danielson over on Kirkus, she shares how detailed her manuscript was, despite there being so few words, and how she actually imagined it to be wordless in the beginning. The lack of a narrator is a brilliant, clever, and stunning move by author Linda Ashman.
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