“What if I fall?” worries the narrator in a stylized, faux hand-lettered type Wade’s Instagram followers will recognize. The Road’s twice-iterated response-“Be a leader and find out”-bookends a dialogue in which a traveler’s anxieties are answered by platitudes. Opening by asking readers, “Have you ever wanted to go in a different direction,” the unnamed narrator describes having such a feeling and then witnessing the appearance of a new road “almost as if it were magic.” “Where do you lead?” the narrator asks. 6-8)įrom an artist, poet, and Instagram celebrity, a pep talk for all who question where a new road might lead.
The happily-ever-after ending delivers a satisfying resolution to a story about tolerance that successfully uses humor and engaging artwork to avoid didacticism-a winner. Clever wordplay distinguishes dialogue rife with jabs at the respective detested groups-for example, frustrated because his parents won’t let him participate in the Big Race since they fear the Hounds will attend, Harley Hare thinks, “This place is going to the dogs…I’m…stuck here like a pooch in a pup tent.” Ultimately, he and Hugo Hound rebel, run the race and save fellow runner Pippa Pig when a storm descends, threatening the village. Although classmates Harley Hare and Hugo Hound share interests, they’ve absorbed their families’ prejudices and shun each other. Hounds and hares emerge as regular Hatfields and McCoys and overtly harass each other with wickedly humorous, singsong taunts. The illustrations are done in colored pencil and ink, each creature and picture frame defined by soft blue lines.
In this translated beginning reader, she sets her story in a specific town, Great Bone (a map of which whimsically decorates the endpapers) and eschews a human populace in favor of anthropomorphic pigs, hounds, hares and other creatures. With In the Town All Year Round (2008), German author/illustrator Berner presented a Richard Scarry–like vision of town life, though populated by people rather than animals.
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