Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
South Africa--born animator and director Weber makes a visually comic picture book debut with this fable about the power of appreciation--and poo. A grinning, bright-eyed chap, the title's dung beetle protagonist seems the very definition of gratitude-practicing. Thanking the sun for its warm rays and stretching out four arms, he awaits "whatever he might receive" near the river, and gets a generous "SPLAT!" of elephant dung. He packs some into a ball to push home (and snack on), orients himself by the sun and the night sky, and protects the small orb from challengers. But when an enigmatic leopard tells the contented beetle of the heaps of dung to be had at a nearby cattle farm, the beetle can't resist. Pencil and digital spreads, heretofore depicting a verdant, sunlit landscape, now turn monochromatic and dreary as the insect voraciously builds a dung empire inside the harshly lit cattle barn. It takes getting buried in an avalanche of the stuff to bring him to his senses and send him back home. The moral--knowing when enough truly is enough--underscores the folly of greed while playfully reassuring that one mistake doesn't have to last a lifetime. Ages 3--5. Agent: Adriann Ranta Zurhellen, Folio Literary. (May)
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Review by Horn Book Review
In a story centered on the collection, care, and digestion of excrement, Weber has crafted a contemporary fable that reads more gracious than gross. After a pile of steaming green-brown poop lands on an appreciative dung beetle ("SPLAT!"), the arduous work of forming it into a ball and rolling it safely home is interrupted by a leopard. The leopard asks the beetle why he works so hard for so little, to which he thoughtfully replies, "I don't have much. But the forest always provides enough." But when the beetle loses his ball of dung, he becomes discouraged and sets off on a journey to a (for him) distant farm. Sterile and disconnected from the surrounding environment, the farm produces a steady supply of dung -- so much so that the now-greedy beetle orders his fellow bugs to build him a huge "empire" of poop. An inevitable avalanche of feces leaves the beetle down and dung-less, but he heads back home with a renewed sense of gratitude for all that nature provides. Weber's lush pencil and digital illustrations feature plenty of atmospheric effects and eye-catching perspectives. While character illustrations are cartoonlike, the settings are more realistic, and the animal characters are full of personality. The efficient text and strong page design result in a briskly paced story, yet subtle narrative flourishes throughout the illustrations will surely be discovered and appreciated through unhurried viewing. Back matter includes a short list of dung beetle facts, from navigation to strength to diet. Patrick GallJuly/August 2024 p.119 (c) Copyright 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
A sly morality tale featuring a dung beetle and a lot of his favorite stuff. Usually the beetle is grateful for the sun, the sky, and whatever he receives from the elephants towering high overhead--"SPLAT!" But then a leopard's remark about a distant farm "with more dung than any beetle could dream of" leads him to a cow barn where the fragrant deposits are so thrillingly massive that he must hire other beetles to help. They gather the dung into a tall, teetering, jealously guarded mountain that's far too large to roll anywhere. Alas, such untrammeled greed can have but one catastrophic result, but rather than becoming a fecal fatality, the beetle emerges from the climactic monumental dungslide a chastened insect. With a renewed appreciation for what he had, he returns to the river bank to take joy in the warm sun, the boundless forest, and, of course, his fair and sufficient share of SPLAT. Kitted out with wide eyes and, when he's swimming in the fresh gloop, a winningly goofy grin, the six-legged scarab, roughly the size of the toenails on the enormous elephantine feet behind him, stands in the ground-level scenes with limbs raised joyously to the sky in supplication. Weber brushes atmospheric views of moonlit grasses and cranes flying across a red sun into art that, along with the tale's terse, formal language, lends a properly folkloric tone to the drollery. Drops dollops of wisdom into a sure storytime hit. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
