the carrot zone.īefore we get into anything else, let's talk text. Without realizing it, Jasper Rabbit is crossed out of his everyday existence and into. Carrots in his tummy he understands, but carrots in his bathtub? In his bedroom? In the tool shed? Seems that Jasper is being stalked by vegetation.
Every day he plucks them from the Crackenhopper Field. Strange and wonderful and weird in all the right places. With pitch perfect illustration by the increasingly talented Peter Brown, this beautifully shaded creation is a great example of how to get the tone of a picture book exactly right. Had Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds been available when I met that kid, it would have been the first thing I'd have pulled from the shelf. The trick is to find something that manages to balance the funny and the frightening in equal measures, never overplaying its hand. What if I'd handed him Alan Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark)? Would it have scarred him for life? Fortunately the shelves of your average children's room abound with titles that are "scary" enough for a small fry. After a while I'd begin to wonder what would happen if I actually gave him what he said he wanted.
For a while there I had this very persistent three-year-old who would beg me for scary fare and wait as I dutifully pulled picture book after picture book for him. You have to know what that pint-sized patron standing before you REALLY wants when they say they want "a scary book". It isn't enough to have to know the books in your collection. A children's librarian is half media specialist, half psychic.
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