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CM . . .
. Volume XXI Number 9 . . . . October 31, 2014
excerpt:
Adventures with Barefoot Critters is an alphabet book featuring a gang of animal characters exploring the world. A fox, a squirrel, a triceratops and other creatures take the reader from January through to December, exploring both inside the house and the wild outdoors in all seasons. Along the way, the alphabet is a subtle guide to their adventures. White’s use of colour is particularly lovely. Overall, the colours are warm, using mostly brown tones and soft washes. However, White cleverly uses slow colour shifts to indicate change in the seasons and emphasizes this by the letter block marking our place in the alphabet. Winter begins with blue being a dominant colour on the page. As winter thaws, the colours slowly evolve from blue to green, and then to yellow, red and finally purple as winter descends again. The text is limited to a single sentence, one part of a rhyming couplet, per page. It is simple and effective in conveying the gist of each adventure and matches well with its complementary illustration. Each page announces its host alphabet letter before the sentence, and the corresponding words are highlighted using different colours in the text. The alphabet is leading these adventures, but not in a way that is overbearing. None of the letter words seem forced or out of place in the text, even the difficult “x” and “z”. However, the rhyme scheme is extremely uneven at times, and I had a hard time reading it aloud and finding the measure of each sentence. If it wasn’t a blasphemous thing to do to a book, I would cut Adventures with Barefoot Critters apart and frame its pages as each page is lovely to gaze at all on its own. Highly Recommended. Stacey Matson is a writer living in Vancouver, BC. She recently finished her MA in children’s literature at the University of British Columbia and her first children’s novel, A Year in the Life of a Total and Complete Genius came out in September 2014.
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This is Teagan White’s first picture book, but the illustration style is somehow both new and warmly recognizable. The whimsical nature of the book begins with a parade of our five main creatures across a double spread page, introducing themselves without text before the copyright and dedication pages. This feeling of whimsy continues through to the end, with beautifully printed end papers, and even a free poster featuring the animals on the inside of the dust jacket.
The book features no-bleed illustrations on a white background, made using watercolour and gouache (a more opaque watercolour paint). White’s use of detail makes it easy to linger and enjoy each illustration without each page being too busy or distracting. None of the illustrations are framed, giving the sense that each adventure leads into the next. Each page shows at least two characters interacting, which gives life and action to their adventures, and White also mixes up the pairings enough to make every character matter. The addition of a triceratops in the mix of woodland animals made me smile, and I appreciated how its presence added more magic to the story.