Michael Hall‘s 2014 picture book It’s an Orange Aardvark! was a pleasant surprise.
I picked it up as part of my recent plunge into orange-related picture books. I knew nothing about except that it had “orange” in the title (though I suspected an aardvark would make an appearance at some point).
I did not anticipate the originality, the shifting perspectives, or the vivid art and skilled design. The book is largely told from the perspective of some ants in a tree stump.. One hears thunder, but in the dark of the stump (and some almost all black pages), they don’t know what the sound is. A bit later, one starts making a small hole that will let them see what’s outside the stump.
However, one of the ants worries an aardvark might be outside. This leads to a series of speculative riffs about what might be outside, guesses and worries that get more elaborate as the ants glimpse different colors…and build stories about what they could be.
The results are pleasantly ridiculous, and the book itself also offers some quiet lessons on perspectives, ignorance, and fear.
The holes the ants carve in their stump cut through pages of the books, and are the right size for little fingers. The images are quite bright, and accent colors and shapes.
