See sample pages from this book at Wink.
A is for adorable and that’s just the beginning of the attributes you’ll want to ascribe to this sweet account of anthropomorphic animals and the alphabet. Teagan White has created a charming book filled with colors awash in the glow of nostalgia, where forest critters romp across a scenic woodland, bundled in impossibly cute sweaters and tiny, striped scarves.
Adventures with Barefoot Creatures is characterized as an ABC book but its letter-themed, rhyming stanzas also follow the woodland flora and fauna through the seasons. A, B and C take place in deep winter as the critters clean out the attic and sniffle through colds. Spring arrives, with robin’s eggs and growing things twining their green vines and reaching across the pages in a riot of whimsy. Exuberant, the critters frolic in the summer’s sun, swimming in the lake and collecting ocean artifacts from the shores. As the end of the alphabet approaches, cable knit sweaters reappear and the illustrations become clotted with the changing colors of leaves and the warmth of campfires. Z arrives to find the barefoot critters snuggled together, exhausted from their delightful New Year’s festivities and tumbled together in a darling snoozefest on the couch.
ABC books are a well-explored subgenre that usually offers little in the way of novelty. Adventures with Barefoot Critters is a title that steps outside the clichéd with playful, quaint artwork that beguiles. If you enjoy the fascinating world of the quirky, imaginative Ms. White and her cast of cheery woodland companions, keep your eyes peeled for her latest book arriving in late summer, Counting with Barefoot Critters. Be assured that it will contain enough anthropomorphic animals in adorable sweaters to warm your literary heart through another season of reading.
– Kaz Weida
