WHO LOVES BOOKS?

Squirrel pairs each wild animal with just the right reading matter in this paean to the pleasures of print.

Boyd brings back the cast of Hide-and-Sleep (2019) and also employs the same alternating full- and split-page format to set up a simple guessing game. Floating into view in a boat loaded with books, Squirrel holds up one volume with a carrot on the cover: “A book for you!” For whom? The only visual cue is a pair of ears sticking up from behind a rock—until the flap is flipped to show Rabbit, reading happily. The distribution goes on, as the next “book for you!” which displays a nest with an egg, goes to…Bird, followed by one with an image of a flower for Butterfly, a water lily for Frog, and on until the last reader to be served, Owl (a tree adorns its cover), calls out “Whoo-whoo-whoo loves books?!” The answer, obviously, is: “Everyone!” Each page turn reveals more and more brightly colored and simply drawn creatures, even fish, noses buried in their reading. In the final picture all have climbed into the S.S. Book Boat, and who would find the author’s closing “All aboard!” an invitation anything short of irresistible?

Every book its reader, as the old meme goes, and vice versa.