Where’s Baby?
February 4th, 2020 by jules
Pictured above are the opening endpapers of Anne Hunter’s Where’s Baby? (Tundra, January 2020). These endpapers make me happy, proof as they are of the book’s understated, droll humor. As you can see, Papa Fox is looking for Baby Fox and, though he searches in earnest, his baby is never out of readers’ sight. Children love to be one up on a protagonist, so expect consistent squeals of delight from this one.
Throughout the book, Papa Fox seeks Baby Fox, who peeks at the reader or even, in one instance, waves right at us. Baby Fox is always just out of reach of Papa (usually behind him), visible to us but never him, as Papa looks in, out, up, inside, over, down, under, and much more (making this an excellent choice for those preschool and elementary classrooms discussing prepositions). There’s a lot of humor, especially in Papa’s encounters with other creatures as he continues his search; all of the book’s dialogue is rendered in speech balloons. Hunter’s palette here is a muted blue and gray one, so the warm rust colors of Baby Fox make him relatively easy to spot — for readers anyway. (Poor Papa.) The illustrations, rendered in pen and colored pencils, are textured and expressive.
Here are some spreads from this very funny hide-and-seek tale so that the art can do the talking.
I am up in the tree, but I am not your baby.”
Eek! Fox! Help, help!
Oh, never mind!”
WHERE’S BABY? Copyright © 2020 by Anne Hunter. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, Tundra Books, New York.
