Room On Top, a lovely book that’s more than the sum of its animals

Ten Apples Up On Top is a classic children’s book. However, more than that, it’s the first book that our two children really loved having read to them when they were younger. The board book version is slightly shorter, they preferred the illustrated book version because it built up the comedic tension when everyone had ten apples on top of their heads. Room on Top is a ridiculously cute illustrated book that entertains through its illustrations, sweet animal interaction, and manic chaos that exists for a brief moment.

There are little things that help Room on Top distinguish itself from a crowded illustrated book field also. When you first turn the book’s cover you’ll see a trail of ants walking to the right. As you turn that page, which leads to its publication page, you will find to anteaters. There’s a momma anteater laying on her belly and her baby who is seated on a log, eating ants as they pass its mouth.

Kids don’t see books on anteaters much. It’s possible that they’ll see one in a zoo, but it’s almost impossible that they’ll ever see one in the wild. Anteaters are mysterious, long-nosed creatures that defy description and are seemingly named for their diet. Are birds called wormeaters? No. Are humans called pizza eaters? No. Yet the anteater is forever saddled with the moniker of its go-to diet, even if it happens to eat other things.

Once the story starts we see the baby anteater who is happily riding along its mother’s back. He’s content simply going from place to place, but he does get lonely sometimes. As the two continue walking they see a small badger, who is invited to, and promptly join the anteaters in ten apples up on top manner.  This new temporary home is much roomier than its burrow, which is musty and dark.

Not too far after that, the three friends meet a duckling, who is all too eager to accept the little anteater’s invitation. A tan rabbit hops along their path and is just the right color to compliment the badger and the anteater, so he’s invited to join them. A squirrel hops onto the pile, uninvited, because that’s the way the squirrels are. There’s even a frog that hops on top with some of its brothers and sisters, followed by a heron, woodpecker, and other critters. The tower of animals on the mother anteater’s back grows higher, swaying back on forth with each step or shift in the wind’s direction.

That is until gravity does what it does best and brings all of the animals back down to Earth. This leaves the baby anteater secure in the fact that there’s no place better in the world for a little anteater to be than on its mother’s back, gently ebbing and flowing as she gets to where they’re going.

Room on Top is a patient-illustrated book that uses playful animals of different kinds and short text to engage readers. The illustrations do the heavy lifting. All of the animals have expressive eyes and movements that let readers use their imagination to tell stories in between what the text is overtly telling audiences. And young readers will always go back to the disparate animals that have found their way onto the mother anteater’s back. I’m no botanist, but I don’t think that ducks, anteaters, snails, and frogs live in the same biome. However, if they do, I sure don’t think that they be traversing around the landscape being carried on the back of an anteater, and that’s the timeless fun of Room on Top.

Room on Top is written by Bruno Hachler, with illustrations by Laura D’arcangelo and is available on North South Books and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

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