That's a great idea!

One of our all time favourite children’s authors is Mo Willems, the author who gave us the hilarious Pigeon series, the delightful Knuffle Bunny series and who can forget the endearing adventures of Elephant and Piggie! So when the Hillsboro library’s picture book e-newsletter (I still subscribe to it!) came out with a recommendation of his latest release, I had to grab a copy. It’s a pity that books by Mo Willems are not easily available in India (like many other American publications) and so I was on a mad hunt for relatives or friends visiting the US or US based relatives visiting India!:-) I guess, all my relatives travelling to or from the US have learned it the hard way that even a courtesy offer to get something from the US is not only accepted without any hesitation but will almost immediately result in a package being delivered at their doorstep…a la Amazon! The package will most definitely contain nothing but books for Abhay and no package from the US is complete without a book from Mo Willems! J

 

Since today’s theme for the 30 books in 30 days challenge is Wordless Wednesday,  I read Mo Willems’ latest offering “That’s not a good idea”, a tribute to the era of silent movies. The book is illustrated and sequenced as if it were silent movie, with pictorial representations inter cut with pages appearing to be black and white dialogue cards. The story revolves around the big bad fox sighting a goose (or could be the other way around) and while hoping to get a sumptuous dinner out of the encounter, tries to befriend the goose into taking him to the woods. “That’s not a good idea” scream the audience of goslings, but the goose marches on to the lonely forest with her hungry escort. Seemingly oblivious to the apparent danger, the hunter and the hunted join together in preparing  soup for dinner. The suspense builds up as the Goslings’ warning “That’s not a good idea” turn from cautious to frantic to frenzied cries of fear! But there’s a twist in the tale at the end and that’s when you realize who was being warned!  Even though Abhay knows the ending….he keeps asking for an encore! This is an  edge of the seat thriller best meant to be read aloud to a group of our own little goslings….and that’s a great idea, by the way!  :-)