A WHALE of a New Picture Book: WHOLE WHALE

 You've never met a child whose classroom experience involved  a daily "counting to one hundred" activity, or celebrated 100th DAY by preparing a collection of "one hundred somethings"? If not, I feel safe in betting that you've never met a child who goes to school. In fact, if you click above, you'll find more than a hundred Pinterest ideas/images that have been used for these activities  Or, just do an online search for 100th Day celebrations to find links for even more ideas, including links to this practice in other countries, cultures, and continents. 

Barefoot Books, 2021

That's why I'm expecting to hear global cheers for this new picture book, WHOLE WHALE, with words by Karen Yin and Illustrations by Nelleke Verhoeff. The premise of this oversized, colorful, animated (by active scenes and by an increasing array of animals), story far exceeds a simple number/concept book. 

Opening with the inviting expanse of a nearly bare, shiny-white, double spread, a few animals recognize a wonderful place to gather and play. Could they fit one hundred, even in such a massive space? The next pageturn challenges that- surely not a whole blue whale? Each successive turn adds a few rhymed lines in which types of animals are named and pictured. Some are familiar, many are not. Each is portrayed with cheeky-to-charming expressions, oddly-scaled sizes, in part and in whole, continually returning to that challenge- a WHOLE WHALE? Not likely!

That descriptor is, of course, important. Some arrive with evidence, but not "whole": scales, hoofs, etc. But a WHALE? A WHOLE WHALE would be entirely impossible, wouldn't it?

The rhymed text remains tightly-metered and story-propelling while incorporating quality vocabulary, less familiar animal species, and specifics such as  collective nouns: "a pod, a pack, a pride, a prowl". They come and go around and among pages, in full voice: "Just listen to them howl and growl."  

Mid-book, the question naturally arises- even if they could fit a WHOLE WHALE, could they all get along? With pleas to stop crowding, the essential line arrives on a very crowded page:

"When  everybody makes some space,

One more can always find a place."

I loved that the underlying theme of this book is as rich and dense as the language itself. The push is on by the assembled menagerie, not to eliminate or separate anyone, but to literally MAKE SOME SPACE, resulting in a double-gatefold that allows these large, glossy pages to unfold to arms' width- and more. Wide enough to allow a WHOLE BLUE WHALE to join them all as the one-hundredth  animal! A challenge is included on that last line, for little (and BIG) readers to find and count all one hundred, adding a final page turn that offers an illustratedl/numbered account of the full one hundred animals.

With ONE HUNDRED DAY experiences being ubiquitous, it's safe to assume that there are a vast number of picture books that focus on counting to one hundred. (Likely, there are more than a hundred titles, of  varying quality, but I didn't search or count.) I can assure anyone interested in pleasing a young learner or their teacher that ONE HUNRED DAY books and related items will be put to good use. I can even more confidently recommend that THIS book is a delight for a wide range of ages, and will be returned to often, certainly more often than a simple  number-concept book would be. It will also intrigue, generating curiosity about the actual size of a WHOLE WHALE, about the other animals and their sizes and habitats and names and more. It will also make a lovely touchpoint/reminder to MAKE SOME SPACE when things feel a bit crowded in groups or when someone is treated as if they are not a good fit. 

This is one of those picture books that I first read about, somewhere, and what i read caused me to check it out from my library immediately. Now, as i search for reviews and posts online, I'm not able to locate that original review, or blog post, or tweet or whatever first caught my attention. Barefoot Books is a small traditional press, but even so I expected this book to have more public praise by now (released in June). Wide praise is well-deserved. I hope that my post here will catch your eye enough to check it out and recommend it to others, if you find yourself to be as big a fan as I am. 

Defeating the Divides: DRAW THE LINE, by Kathryn Otashi

Roaring Book Press, 2018

I'd like to say that author/illustrator Kathryn Otashi's latest picture book, DRAW THE LINE,  is especially suited to current events and social climates. Sadly, my sense is that the polarization within society has become a sustained condition, amplified and glorified by trolls, tropes, and terrible news, gushing at us from a firehose of social media and cable networks. 
That suggests that this book, with timeless truth and universally recognizable emotions, should become an 
immediate and endless must-have. 
Creator Otashi has utilized her talent to convey the simplest of concepts through expressive inanimate objects while revealing simple-but-not-simplistic human relationships and reactions. Her subtle approach to deep but resonant human values make her books as appealing to toddlers as they are to teens. (See covers and link below.)

This also means that descriptions of her stories, particularly this one, sound obvious or uninteresting when described, at least by me. Because of my own inability to do the book justice with words, I'll rely on photos of a few interior spreads to demonstrate specific points. First, a summary:
Two boys, each unaware of the other, are drawing lines when they bump butts. Their spontaneous reactions include surprise, engagement, and the joining of their lines. In only a page turn or two one boy accidentally hurts the other, laughs, and their battle begins, severing their joined line. Their sustained angry, even vengeful expressions create a crack-that-becomes-a-crevasse between them. Only when one of the two seeks out a space in which the divide is narrowest does a potential solution emerge. 

Otashi's concept books offer a master class in the use of white space, selective use of color and blending, and the emotional impact generated by color tones, color depth, shadow, and minimal lines.

The endpapers are solid color, a mid-tone purple. I wondered about that choice, since the battle and resolution throughout are conveyed as much by the purple/yellow shifts and blends as they are by the actions and expressions of the boys. Those endpapers are a pleasant, gentle shade of purple, not suggesting the blackened, threatening tones of the pages with the deepest conflict. Even so, I wondered, "Why not yellow?" Why not at least some aspect of yellow used in the the final endpaper. Then I did what I urge everyone to do, with every good picture book. 
Look again. 
Think again. 
That's when I recognized more clearly how Otashi achieved her final twist, indicating that the closing of the story is actually a beginning. But only a beginning. I'm not sharing that spread here because you really MUST get this book and examine it closely. (The third spread above suggests what develops.) Without a word of text, without any rose-colored glasses, her final spread offers hope while retaining an awareness of the polarity and conflict that surround the boys (us), a reminder that cooperation and collaboration are choices, not magical solutions. 
I wish I could provide this book to every classroom across the country. But why stop there? It's wordless, and other than the generic "western" characters, it provides fully universal appeal AND food for thought and discussion for any culture or geographic location. 
Why would I stop there with my recommendation?
It would also be a wonderful gift book for adults, particularly those who find themselves firmly locked into one set of opinions.
In fact, Otashi's other books (here) would make a terrific gift pack for those same adults.