The basic set up: there are eleven pages of actual animals. The animal is on the right, two paragraphs of information about that animal on the left, and the animal's name running vertically down the edge of the page. The fun part is that each page is split in half, which means you can flip the top or the bottom half to create 121 animal combinations. Sheep upper and squirrel lower makes a Shirrel - an animal that provides fleece for wool and scurries around burying acorns. We love the Dow: dog upper half and cow lower half. Great for herding sheep and provides milk!
Scheffler did a fantastic job sizing the animals and making them line up just right, so the new combinations look proportionate and funny as heck. There is also something about the way the eyes are drawn, so it seems as though the animal is looking directly at the reader, kind of like they are in on the joke. "I have turkey legs. What do you think about that?" We were pretty much cracking up making silly animal combinations and picturing them running around in real life. Really fun book!
Review copy provided by Nosy Crow.
Posts
