How Do You Feel?

Written and illustrated by Rebecca Bender

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-013-0

32 pp.

Ages 2-5

November, 2016

Little ones often have difficulty differentiating between feeling, the emotion, and feeling, the sense of touch, and Rebecca Bender, creator of the award-winning Giraffe and Bird books (Giraffe and Bird, Dancing Cat Books, 2010; Don’t Laugh at Giraffe, Pajama Press, 2012; Giraffe Meets Bird, Pajama Press, 2015), has some fun word play with that to compare textures of a variety of animals.

The little hedgehog guides the story, going from animal to animal–toad, snake, duckling, rabbit, snail, and kitten– asking how it feels.  Each animal answers with a descriptive adjective –bumpy, smooth, fuzzy, silky, slimy and soft–and a simile that expresses and clarifies what each feeling is like.   And then all the animals turn things around and ask, "Hedgehog, how do YOU feel?"  Though they suggest a variety of textural synonyms for prickly,  the hedgehog does a fun shift in declaring he feels…"happy, like a hedgehog having his tummy tickled!"

From How Do You Feel? 

by Rebecca Bender

Pajama Press has started putting out these lovely padded-cover books for preschoolers that are so much more inviting to hold than ordinary board books.  With its soft, cushioned cover, the parade of animals within and the repetitive text, How Do You Feel? will become a popular read-aloud book for parents and teachers of preschoolers and kindergarteners.  The rhythm and predictability of the text offers great opportunities for little ones to suggest answers to each question.  It’s a great teaching tool.  I can just imagine parents and teachers asking, just as they often play that game asking what a dog or cat says, how a snake or a kitten feels.

From How Do You Feel? 

by Rebecca Bender

But, kids will see beyond the content of the book and fall in love with Rebecca Bender’s adorable creatures. Every one of them has darling eyes–all bright, some laughing, several inquisitive–and bodies of evocative textures that will delight little ones who will want to reach out and touch.  They’ll be surprised to only stroke paper but Rebecca Bender’s illustrations will still give readers starting points for further discussions.  It could be about the sense of touch–and the other senses as well– or about synonyms and the thesaurus or about similes and metaphors.  How Do You Feel? may be targeted for the pre-reader who will be charmed by the whole package of art and text, but teachers should look beyond the cuteness and see the book as having applications far beyond the very youngest.  That's how I feel.  How do you feel? 

Buddy and Earl and the Great Big Baby

Written by Maureen Fergus

Illustrated by Carey Sookocheff

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-716-0

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

August 2016

Our dynamic duo of Buddy, the dog, and Earl, the hedgehog, introduced in Buddy and Earl (Groundwood, 2015) and revisited in Buddy and Earl Go Exploring (Groundwood, 2016) have a new adventure afoot when it is announced that Mrs. Cunningham and her baby are coming for a visit. Meredith, the young girl in the family, seems excited, and the two pets follow suit. But what’s a baby? Earl questions, and makes all manner of speculation from a mode of transportation to an electrical appliance or something to eat, while Buddy adds his modest knowledge to the discussion.

The arrival of the child leaves them both chagrined as the baby pays no attention to anyone and leaves of swath of destruction as it ambles through the house, tasting, eating, breaking. A consequent delivery to its cage i.e., playpen has the baby making friends with Earl who then appoints himself guardian when the great big baby escapes to new and wild adventures in bedrooms of snakes and lava and dinosaurs and, the deadliest of all, water.

From Buddy and Earl and the Great Big Baby 

by Maureen Fergus, illus. by Carey Sookocheff

Buddy’s faithfulness is only surpassed by Earl’s joie de vivre making the two a duo of contrasts and congeniality. In facing a new encounter, Buddy and Earl work together to understand, mitigate and even appreciate the complication that is the great big baby. By giving voice to Buddy and Earl and even Meredith as they handle the baby, Maureen Fergus covers a variety of sentiments, recognizing that babies, like pets, aren’t always small and adorable but still “make the world a happier place” (pg. 31).

Again Carey Sookocheff illustrates Buddy and Earl’s adventure with the right feel of simplicity and wonder. There is sparseness to the artwork that is brilliantly appropriate for a story told from the perspective of a dog and a hedgehog, undoubtedly less concerned with the material excessiveness of our world. Imaginative play and exploration are emphasized, not things, and Carey Sookocheff makes sure that, with her minimal colour palette and attention to shape and line, Buddy and Earl remain the stars of this story, nothwithstanding a great big baby, that is.

Buddy and Earl 

From Buddy and Earl and the Great Big Baby 

by Maureen Fergus, illus. by Carey Sookocheff

Buddy and Earl Go Exploring

by Maureen Fergus

Illustrated by Carey Sookocheff

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-714-6

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

March, 2016

Buddy the dog and Earl the hedgehog from Buddy and Earl (Groundwood Books, 2015) are back and this time the fast friends are on the move.  Okay, they stay in the house but there’s so much to explore in their home, especially when everyone is asleep. And it all starts with Earl declaring a simple “Bon voyage” when they should be settling down to sleep.

Earl is essentially a Zen-kind of traveller, going “Wherever the road leads me” and “However long it takes” (pg. 8), but he’s surprised when his fast and furious running leads him nowhere, having never left the wheel in his cage.  Everything changes when somehow Earl gets Buddy to go exploring with him.

Everything is new and, in the imaginative mind of the little hedgehog, something to be investigated.  Their first stop is “a silvery lake in the shadow of a great mountain” (pg. 15) a.k.a. Buddy’s water bowl and the garbage pail, where Earl enjoys a lazy soak while Buddy discovers some tasty leftovers in the can he upturned.  But spotting a hairbrush in Mom’s purse, Earl sees a lady hedgehog in the jaws of a monster and enlists Buddy’s largesse to save his sweetie from being devoured. Reciprocating, because that’s what friends do, Earl stands up to a monster of Buddy’s world, the vacuum cleaner.

With declarations of friendship and heroism, the two finally settle down amidst the mayhem of their night’s exploration with a resounding “Bon soir.”

Maureen Fergus again offers up the unlikely friends as a story of contrasts: the little hedgehog with the massive imagination and courage to see outside his box, and the tall dog with the staid attitude of familiarity who understands more about the real world and still goes along with his prickly friend.  Buddy and Earl Go Exploring is  a sweet tale of travels to new worlds without ever leaving home.  The simplicity of their friendship and endeavours are balanced with the unfussy illustrations of Carey Sookocheff who also provided the artwork for Buddy and Earl.  Carey Sookocheff has created the ideal representations of the two animals in their physical appearances and their manners–petite and large, bold and cautious–and completed Maureen Fergus’ textual characters in such a way that the two will always be recognizable.  There’s Stella and Sam, Max and Ruby, and Frog and Toad, and now there’s Buddy and Earl.

From Buddy and Earl Go Exploring

by Maureen Fergus, illus. by Carey Sookocheff (pg. 30)

Nota Bene: More adventures to come, starting with Buddy and Earl and the Great Big Baby in August, 2016.

Buddy and Earl

by Maureen Fergus

Illustrated by Carey Sookocheff

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-712-2

32 pp.

Ages 4-7

August 2015

I’m sure that most friendships don’t start out that way.  There may be those encounters by which individuals become “fast friends” but I suspect many friendships  begin slowly as each tries to figure the other out. Friend? Foe? Agenda? Danger?  In fact, in Maureen Fergus' Buddy and Earl, when Meredith brings a mysterious open box in, Buddy the dog probably wasn't thinking "friend" at all but rather "what?"

A few pokes  and an amiable introduction between Buddy and the rounded creature who identifies himself as Earl has the two chatting away.  But still Buddy doesn't know the "what" that is Earl.  He asks but Earl has an odd assortment of answers to, "And what are you, Earl?" He could be a race car, or a giraffe, or a sea urchin, a talking hairbrush–definitely plausible–or a skyscraper, rhino or mouse.  Nothing seems to work for Buddy who is clever enough to know what Earl isn't.  But when Earl suggests that he is a pirate and Buddy his first mate, the two go off on an adventure that has Mom shaking her head and the two bonded with friendship.

I've adored Maureen Fergus' YA books (The Gypsy King, Razorbill, 2012; A Fool's Errand, Razorbill, 2013; Tomorrow's Kingdom, Razorbill, 2014) but she's showing her versatility in writing picture books, recently winning the Ontario Library Association's Blue Spruce readers' choice award for The Day My Mom Came to Kindergarten (Kids Can Press, 2013), and Buddy and Earl displays the same wonderful voice of innocence and discovery, with a touch of parental attitude.  Whether Buddy is a real dog and Earl another family member, I have no doubt but it really doesn't matter.  The two dissimilar pets demonstrate the ability to make friends no matter where and no matter with whom just by being themselves.  It doesn't really matter whether Earl is a hedgehog, though I suspect he is, and prone to imaginative bursts of creative play or steadfast and thoughtful like the loyal Buddy. The two come together and make something better and bigger:  a friendship.  And that's all it takes to identify Earl in the end and to add a new moniker to Buddy beyond "dog".

I don't know Carey Sookocheff's work but I think we all will soon.  Buddy and Earl is her first picture book and I believe the simplicity and retro style of her artwork, here in muted creams, khaki, orange and powder blue, will endear her work to many.  It has the effortless ambience of child's play to which young children will be drawn.  I imagine that the young will be as charmed by Carey Sookocheff's illustrations as they are to the guessing game that Buddy and Earl play whilst the two strut into their new friendship.  Even better, we've got more adventures to which we can look forward with the two new friends getting into new situations in Buddy and Earl Go Exploring (March, 2016) and Buddy and Earl and the Baby, both from Groundwood Books.