Best
and Worst of the Year
Reviewed by Kenny Brechner
The two poles of human endeavor, success and failure, attract the primary interest of all but the most pure hearted social scientists, whose perspective and expertise allow them to appreciate the socially essential, and perhaps even thrilling, aspects of mediocrity. The rest of the Populus, ironically perhaps, divides its fascination between the exceptional victories and gruesome disasters which periodically occur in various areas of the ever expanding public domain.
As for this year’s picture books let us note then the best and worst of this year, namely Dennis Haseley and Jim LaMarche’s A Story For Bear, and Richard Waring and Holly Swain’s Alberto The Dancing Alligator, respectively. These two books both feature a relationship between a person and a wild animal. They differ, however, in the respect that the relationship depicted in A Story For Bear is touching and delicately drawn, while the relationship depicted in Alberto The Dancing Alligator, is bizarre and ham handed. The two books also differ in that one is beautifully rendered while the other is graphically inert. In terms of the story, one will delight young and old, while the other will alarm and repel readers of all ages.
A Story For Bear follows a young bear who is attracted to the sound of a woman reading aloud outside her forest cabin. He returns day after day to hear her read. When the woman leaves for the winter the bear finds some books left behind which he takes to his cave for the winter. In the spring he returns them and takes up his friendship again. The drawings carry subtle motions and reminders of the approaching and fading seasons. The story, simple in its form, has a touching, elegant quality, that lingers long after the book has closed.
Alberto The Dancing Alligator also has qualities which linger long after the book has been closed. It is the story of a girl who receives an alligator egg from her Uncle Ezra. The young carnivore "very soon...grew into a big alligator, and so Tina kept him in the bathtub." This sensible arrangement went on for some time while the two young friends spent their time dancing tangos in Tina’s bedroom and bathroom until one day "Tina and Alberto slipped on a bar of soap. Alberto fell headfirst into the toilet! As Tina fell she grabbed the toilet flusher and Whoosh...Alberto was gone." Alberto, who is larger than Tina, plunges down through a tiny pipe and, after having a splendid time in the sewer system, pops up in people’s toilets all over the city, looking for the distraught Tina.
Just as in, A Story For
Bear, where the bear and the woman are reunited in Spring, Tina and
Alberto are reunited after she plays a tango down the toilet and Albert finds
his way through the sewer and back into her arms. Really, there is so much right
with A Story For Bear, and so much wrong with Alberto the
Dancing Alligator, that they are best appreciated when read
consecutively.
