Description
It’s a rainy day and Johnny Lion, star of Johnny Lion’s Book and Johnny Lion’s Bad Day, is stuck inside with no rain boots. What’s a bored little cub to do? Johnny builds block towers, knocks them over, paints pictures, paints his tail all red (“Oh, oh, oh! The great big SCAREY THING bit me in the tail.”) Johnny’s mother is not impressed. “What a mess,” she cries. “Johnny Lion, clean up all that awful mess.” Then Johnny’s father comes home with a new pair of rubber boots for Johnny, and he can finally go outside where his imagination has even freer reign. For every child who has known the agony of being trapped inside when the whole wet world outside beckons, Edith Thacher Hurd and Clement Hurd have your number. With warm, gentle wit and enchanting illustrations, this well-loved author-illustrator team perfectly captures those rainy day blues. Clement Hurd, whose illustrations for Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon brought children’s picture books to stunning new heights, can do more with a palette of yellow, red, and blue than many artists can do with a whole rainbow of colors. (Ages 3 to 7) –Emilie Coulter
