Review by New York Times Review
IT'S not always easy to follow your heart. It can mean challenging the status quo, defying others' expectations or, sometimes, discovering that those harboring strong preconceptions had you pegged correctly all along. And while children learn early on that a leopard can't change his spots, it's equally important to remember that each pattern is unique. Three new picture books explore the nuances of individuality through the exploits of feral creatures who aren't always what they appear to be - except, of course, when they are. In the opening pages of "Mr. Tiger Goes Wild," the author-illustrator Peter Brown depicts his hero as a bright pop of orange in a sepia-toned, quasi-Victorian city of bipedal deer and penny-farthing-riding squirrels clad in top hats, starched collars and overcoats. The stiffly anthropomorphized creatures maintain smug, sniffy expressions as they raise teacups, greet one another tepidly and admonish playful young rhinos, bears and pigs not to "act like wild animals." (Though his emerald-eyed, stoic expression never wavers, Mr. Tiger clearly gets the irony.) As Brown showed in 2009's "The Curious Garden," in which a small patch of urban green tended by a determined boy named Liam eventually transforms an entire city, a revolution can begin with a single, small act of defiance. One day, Mr. Tiger gets the "very wild idea" to adopt an all-fours stance, and things quickly progress: soon, he's scaling row houses and skinny-dipping in the public fountain. A two-page spread shows just how far he's come - wearing nothing but his stripes, he puffs out his chest and meets the reader's gaze with a slightly surprised and utterly joyful "Here I am!" expression. When his fed-up fellow citizens sternly suggest that if he must continue this behavior, he "kindly do so in the WILDERNESS!" the newly liberated cat complies with gusto. "What a magnificent idea!" he roars, gleefully escaping to a Rousseau-like tableau of dense ferns, soaring palms and cascading waterfalls. (Whether by coincidence or design, Henri Rousseau's 1891 painting "Tiger in a Tropical Storm [Surprised!]" marked the debut of the artist's famed jungle scenes, earning him the first serious review of his career.) Magnificent solitude has its price, however, and Mr. Tiger soon arrives at a second revelation: "He missed his friends. He missed the city. He missed his home." The return journey is a lesson in compromise, which isn't the same thing as defeat. Rather, Mr. Tiger chooses a middle path, and his neighbors meet him halfway. "how to hide a lion" finds another wild animal in an environment intolerant of his very nature. Originally published in Britain, the story begins innocently enough: "One hot day, a lion strolled into town to buy a hat." The noble beast has a curious, friendly look about the face, but one glance at the fearful townsfolk - this being a conventionally real-world burg inhabited by human beings - tells the reader that the excursion will not go as planned. As startled by the defensive villagers as they are terrified of him, the lion runs off, and lands in the backyard of a girl named Iris, who, as luck would have it, "wasn't scared of lions." Using a nostalgic style and subdued palette reminiscent of midcentury Little Golden Books masters like Richard Scarry - whose cover for 1956's "Winky Dink" also featured a honey-hued lion offset by a similar robin's-egg-blue background - the author-illustrator Helen Stephens shows how the pair's friendship develops just outside the myopic view of Iris's parents, even as the girl's mother lounges, barefoot in her armchair, reading a tabloid with the front-page headline "Lion on the Run." Despite the endless capacity for cluelessness among the adults in children's books, Iris and the lion are eventually found out, and the great cat flees. from here, the plot follows a reassuringly familiar path: the lion hides in plain sight downtown, between two Patience-and-Fortitude-like stone cousins, a vantage point that allows him to keep an eye on Iris and on the town hall. When two burglars break in and steal "every single one of the mayor's candlesticks," the lion pounces, nabbing the thieves and redeeming his reputation. Stephens wraps up her story neatly, with an affectionate callback to its very first page. Iris's gentle admonishment to her parents - "I told you he was a kind lion" - feels less a rebuke than a reminder to approach the unknown not with prejudgment, but with an open heart. As in Stephens's tale, the central characters of "Carnivores" suffer from a public relations problem - though in this case they've earned it. Fractured fairy tales and subverted expectations pervade children's literature, but as much as we may want to sympathize with Aaron Reynolds's beleaguered lion when "the wildebeests call him 'bad kitty,'" the fact remains: "He's eaten half the neighborhood." The great white shark is wounded by talk of "feeding frenzies"; after all, he claims (unconvincingly) "he's simply a fast eater." These two, along with the timber wolf who "almost never eats little girls," make a radical decision: "We'll go vegetarian!" Meeting in an A.A.-like setting, complete with desperately clutched coffee mugs and chalk-scrawled slogans like "29 Days Without Meat," the carnivore support group's efforts nonetheless fail. The wolf tries to survive on a diet of berries, but "every single berry bush seemed to have a bunny inside." The shark, determined to eat only seaweed, finds it leaves "a horrible kelpy aftertaste in his mouth." Despite the predators' ongoing efforts, their carnivorous tendencies assert themselves with renewed zeal. Dan Santat's animation background - he created the Disney television series "The Replacements" - manifests in his wild-eyed, mixed-media illustrations, which look as though they could bound right off the page and onto the screen. Reynolds, who pulled off a lighthearted "Who's the real monster?" twist at the end of 2012's "Creepy Carrots" (illustrated with Hitchcockian verve by Peter Brown), here takes a turn for the dark - and then goes darker still. A clue may be found in his author bio, which confesses six years of vegetarianism followed by the veritable zoo of animals he's consumed since. This is no sweet story of finding one's muse or looking beyond appearances; instead, "Carnivores" puts a somewhat macabre spin on the "follow your heart" theme, and it also imparts a corollary: "Listen to your stomach." CAROLYN JURIS is associate children's book editor at Publishers Weekly.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 10, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Opening endpapers of orderly gray bricks introduce a community of proper Victorian animals getting about their business with smileless politesse. But Mr. Tiger, his bright-orange face a sore thumb among the elephant grays and mule-deer browns, dreams of freedom. First, he drops to all fours. His neighbors are nonplussed. Then, he rampages and roars. His neighbors are frightened. Finally, he gets naked. The village members suggest he head into the wilderness, which he thinks is a magnificent idea. He loves the wilderness, with all its wildness, but, in time, he misses the city and his friends. He returns only to discover that things have loosened to a happy medium. He dons some aloha attire, and all is right with the world. Closing endpapers of haphazard greenery celebrate the welcome change. Brown highlights the differences between municipal propriety and savage abandon with color and composition. The city is all upright, sepia, rectilinear precision; the wild, sweeping vistas of lush, verdant paradise, and their final amalgam form a nice balance. With its skewed humor and untamed spirit, this joyous exploration of quasi-reverse anthropomorphism will delight listeners again and again.--Barthelmess, Thom Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In a gratifying parable about self-actualization, Mr. Tiger lives in a drab society where bipedal animals dressed in fairly Victorian apparel exchange terse salutations, while adhering to rules of etiquette. Though similarly attired in a handsome suit coat and top hat, Mr. Tiger disrupts Brown's (You Will Be My Friend!) manicured spreads, which are colored in the ashy browns of daguerreotypes; he's the color of a mango, has lime green eyes, and faces readers with an expression of barely constrained disgruntlement. Mr. Tiger mechanically runs through the motions (stiffly lifting his hat to greet Mr. Deer), but, "He wanted to loosen up. He wanted to have fun. He wanted to be... wild." Mr. Tiger's expression turns to delight as he scampers on all fours, sheds his clothes, and heads to the wilderness-"where he went completely wild!" His eventual return to civilization reveals that liberation is on the rise. Readers who prefer the view from underneath the dinner table will find a kindred soul in Brown's brightly burning character who knows that the wilderness is always waiting, should the need arise. Ages 3-6. Agent: Paul Rodeen, Rodeen Literary Management. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-Mr. Tiger lives in a perfectly fine world of prim and proper ladies and gentlemen. One day, the stiff suits, dainty teas, and Victorian manners begin to bore him. and he has a very wild idea. This "it's okay to be different" story stands out from other picture books on the topic thanks to Brown's delightfully clever illustrations and masterful compositions. From the tiger-striped cover that begs to be petted to the ingenious pops of bright orange (Brown's new signature color?) amid muted browns and grays, the award-winning illustrator does not disappoint. Children will appreciate Mr. Tiger's transformation and the way his friends eventually accept his (and their own) uniqueness. Several wordless spreads encourage audience participation while subtle visual clues gently build his character. A full spread featuring the newly liberated Mr. Tiger au naturel is delivered with pitch-perfect comedic timing and is guaranteed to inspire wild giggles. Sure to be an instant read-aloud classic in classrooms and libraries.-Kiera Parrott, Darien Library, CT (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Mr. Tiger walks upright and wears a top hat and a handsome coat with a bow tie, fitting in with the rest of society. But his orange fur provides the only spot of color in the very drab, very proper community, and Mr. Tiger is bored: He wanted to loosen up. He wanted to bewild. And so, Mr. Tiger drops to all fours and for the first time looks happy. As he gets progressively wilder, roaring and shedding his confining clothes, the town animal-folk are appalled and banish him to the wildernesswhich, he decides, is a magnificent idea. This is a book made for storytime, with its bold mixed-media illustrations that work almost like a storyboard moving left to right, and a plot with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Children, who get tired of grownups and their requests for proper behavior, will relate to the proud joy Mr. Tiger clearly feels when he is free to be wild, and also to his eventual feelings of loneliness. The happy ending, almost a reverse of Where the Wild Things Are, includes everyone discovering the fun of being at least a little bit wild. susan dove lempke (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
There's a lot to go wild for in this picture-book celebration of individuality and self-expression. Mr. Tiger lives a peaceable, if repressed, life alongside other anthropomorphic animals in a monochromatic, dreadfully formal little town. All the other animals seem content with their stiff, dull lives, except for Mr. Tiger, whose bright coloring is a visual metaphor for his dissatisfaction. When child (animal) characters scamper by, a bipedal horse admonishes them, "Now, children, please do not act like wild animals." This plants a seed in Mr. Tiger's mind, and a few pages later, he embraces a quadruped stance. The spread following this wordless one makes great use of the gutter, positioning aghast townsfolk on the verso as Mr. Tiger proudly marches off the recto on all fours. This is just the beginning of his adoption of wild ways, however: He sheds his clothing, runs away to the wilderness, roars and generally runs amok. But, much like that other Wild Thing, Max, Mr. Tiger comes to miss his friends, his city and his home, and so he returns to find "that things were beginning to change." Ensuing pages show animals in various states of (un)dress, sometimes on all fours, sometimes on two feet, cavorting about in colorful settings, and (to paraphrase the closing lines) all feeling free to be themselves. Hooray for Mr. Tiger and his wild ways! (Picture book. 3-7)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
