Sloth Slept On - Softcover

Frann Preston-Gannon is a London-based illustrator who graduated from Kingston University in 2010. In 2011 she was the UK's first recipient of a Sendak Fellowship and spent a month in residence working with the great Maurice Sendak. She was awarded a bronze in the no.8 3x3 Annual of Contemporary Illustration for her unpublished children's work. Frann is the author of The Journey Home (978-1-84365-209-0), Dinosaur Farm (978-1-84365-211-3) and How to Lose a Lemur (978-1-84365-250-2).

PreS-Gr 2-Three young siblings go on a knowledge quest to identify the mysterious animal asleep in their yard. They start with their dad, but he is too busy. Turning to the books in the house, they peruse titles such as Animals of the Ocean, Wonders of the Desert, and The Rainforest-all while an adult in the room is reading a newspaper with the headline "Zoo Breakout!" The siblings-two boys and a girl-work together to brainstorm: "We knew he wasn't an elephant. He didn't have a trunk. He wasn't a tiger, either. He didn't have any stripes. He wasn't a horse or a bear. He let out a loud snore. He was still asleep." Leave it to the youngest of the bunch to find a picture in the rainforest book that perfectly matches the mysterious creature snoring away! Delightful artwork, rendered in warm watercolors displayed with plenty of white space to allow the illustrations to pop off the page, helps tell this comical tale tinged with environmentalism. After the older siblings imagine that perhaps the mysterious creature is a pirate, an astronaut, or a knight, the youngest shouts out, "LOOK!" and proudly displays his reference book, identifying the creature as a sloth. A clever spread weaves factual information into the story, as the young boy shows his older siblings his book. A nice big box covered with stamps and packed with "lovely leaves to eat and toys for the journey" sends the sloth back to where the siblings think he belongs, the rainforest...where the sloth finally wakes up, looks around, and says, "Excuse me. Which way is the zoo?" VERDICT A crowd-pleaser for preschool storytimes.-Lisa Kropp, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NYα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.