Benjamin's Barn

Describes, in verse, Benjamin's magnificient barn which is enormously warm, tall, wide, soft, clean, and full

PreSchool-Grade 1-- One rainy spring day, a small boy named Benjamin sets off for his big red barn, where he spends hours with the flesh-and-blood animals of the farm and the exotic creatures of his imagination. Thus, an elephant and a newborn lamb share shelter from the storm, while a rhinoceros and a billy goat cavort in the hay. When sunlight breaks through the clouds and Benjamin's father comes to take him home, all that is left along with the barnyard animals is a princess' golden crown. The rhyming text has a comforting circular flow, well-suited to Benjamin's flight of fancy and subsequent return to reality. Jeffers' lifelike illustrations enhance the theme, lending as much reality to the leathery texture of a pterodactyl's wing as to the downy softness of goose feathers. Literal-minded children may question the undifferentiated juxtapostion of the fantastic with the real, but most will understand an imagination as big and wide as a barn, with room enough for pachyderms and pirates as well as pigeons. --Anna DeWind, Milwaukee Public Library
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Unlike Lindbergh and Jeffers's popular The Midnight Farm , though similar in format, the text and art of this picture book for preschoolers are lackluster and flat. On a rainy day, Benjamin plays in his barn, filling it in his imagination with exotic creatures. The repetitive eight-line verse on each double-page spread extols the barn's virtues: "Benjamin's barn / Is so big and so soft / He could ask a frail princess / To sleep in the trough / Or a pair of raccoons / To curl up in the loft / (Because Benjamin's barn / Is enormously soft.)" But Jeffers's paintings, in particular, seem somewhat strained, as when Lindbergh's "soft barn" is belied by a robust princess who lies in prickly straw watched over by a huge raccoon climbing a post. While the idea on which the book is based has possibilities, the execution is disappointingly weak. Ages 3-8.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.