I KNOW A RHINO

A young girl transforms her day in imaginative rhyming play with her many animal friends. Beginning with tea time, the rhinoceros delicately pours their beverage from a bright, yellow, happy-faced teapot. Continuing with seven two-page spreads, she fights in the mud with a pig, dances with an orangutan, twirls around and around with a hippopotamus, doctors a sick dragon, bathes with a giraffe (here the scene turns sideways), snacks with a brown bear, and dresses up with a leopard. Each setting is well-composed and centers on the two friends who only have smiles for one another. Luminous colors enhance each scene, which mirror a child’s imaginative play. Though the text supports the art on each page, there are one or two awkward rhythms that detract just a bit from the established flow if the reader isn’t prepared. After a long day of play, the young girl sits on the rhino and she and her animal friends march upstairs to bed where it turns out, of course, that she snuggles down with each of them . . . stuffed. A trifle, but listeners will enjoy identifying each animal as their simple rhyme begins, “I know a . . . ” (Picture book. 2-5)