Little Gray One - Hardcover

Wahl, Jan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688120377 ISBN 13: 9780688120375

Publisher: Tambourine, 1993

Synopsis

Mother Elephant teaches her child to forage for food, bathe in the water, and play where it is safe

About this title

From School Library Journal:

PreSchool-Grade 1-While at a water hole, a mother elephant expresses her love for her baby as she meets his needs: providing food and drink (plucking a juicy, round pumpkin and digging a spring puddle), protection (from cobra and wildebeest), and instruction (on how to take a dust bath, how to choose ripe fruit). Wahl uses parent/child dialogue with repetition and gentle rhythm to involve and propel readers. The result is a text reminiscent of Margaret Wise Brown's Runaway Bunny (HarperCollins, 1942) in focus and tone. Little Gray One's grateful reception of the advice provides an interesting contrast to the mother/child interaction in Wahl's Little Eight John (Lodestar, 1992). Lessac's gouache paintings exude an exotic flavor and a soothing familiarity. Their flat appearance and naive style support the simplicity of Wahl's text, while the lovely colors, in a palette similar to the one she brought to Irving Burgie's Caribbean Carnival (Tambourine, 1992), enhance the book's prettiness. The terrain (said to be "somewhere in Africa") changes radically from scene to scene, and cheetahs, gazelles, pelicans, and the like are shown cavorting together across the pages. While not entirely realistic, Little Gray One is on target as a reassuring bedtime story.
Liza Bliss, Worcester Public Library, Salem Square, MA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

In undulating prose Wahl paints a picture of "the place of the water hole," where the elephant Little Gray One and his mother live, and where "quick cheetahs run with beautiful gazelles." As the day passes, the mother teaches her offspring a multitude of vital information--how to pick the sweetest plums ("by yanking up a black plum tree"), the best way to take a mud bath, how to find comfort beneath a shady fig tree in the midday sun. Her solid presence and the constant refrain of "One for me. One for you" provide a soothing background against which Little Gray One experiments with youthful exuberance--he runs with the wildebeest ("Look, look! I am a wildebeest!" "No you are not," says his mother), frolics with monkeys and gets stuck in the mud but, with his mother always near, he remains safe. Timid children will like this story; daredevils will not. Lessac's lush, folk-art-like gouaches introduce a feeling of energy and excitement not always apparent in the text. Vivid oranges and pinks capture the exotic setting, while the animals are depicted with pleasing naivete and freshness. Ages 3-up.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Tambourine
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0688120377
• ISBN 13: 9780688120375
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1
• Illustrator: Lessac Frane