What’s Your Favorite Animal? is charming-not mandatory Eric Carle

Any parent knows the work of Eric Carle. The Very Hungry Caterpillar has sold 30 million copies since its release in 1969 and his other books attract young readers like a moth to a flame. His distinctive artwork with its multi-layered appearance, simple lessons and vivid colors make things easy for parents. He is one of the 500 pound gorillas in children’s book publishing. In that respect it makes sense that What’s Your Favorite Animal, by Eric Carle and Friends exists. What’s Your Favorite Animal showcases many of the other giants in children’s publishing giving them two pages each to showcase their distinctive artwork, style of humor and writing.

His friends in the book are Lucy Cousins, Susan Jeffers, Steven Kellogg, Jon Klassen, tom Lichtenheld, Peter McCarty, Chris Raschka, Peter Sis, Lane Smith, Erin Stead, Rosemary Wells and Mo Willems. Most of these authors you may know for their style of art, their name and you probably have a book or two from some of them.

That is what’s great about What’s Your Favorite Animal-it can introduce new children’s authors to entirely new audiences. Some of the readers might not care for one style, while being intrigued about another author and that’s the point of the book.

Folks that know Brown Bear, Brown Bear (another classic Carle Book) might not know authors beyond the most popular ones. I know the art of Tom Lichtenheld when I see it, but know that I don’t have any of his books in the house. His art and word make me immediately smile and I know that his books will be light, breezy and what our children already like.

Peter Sis was a new author to us. His style is dreamy and involves less realism. Rosemary Wells’ style is cute, homegrown and with realistic art.

This is a good, brief introduction to other children’s authors that your family might not know. It’s also packed with animals, has a wide variety of art, thick cardboard pages and is a great good-night book. Having said that, if you have a good variety of children’s authors in your child’s book collection this is one that you can skip.  If your young reader loves animals or is just getting their book collection started this is a nice jumping off point so that you can figure out what suits them best.