Can't Please 'Em All! Substitute Groundhog by Kristen Remener

"I SEE MY SHADOW!" GROUNDHOG DECLARED.

HALF THE ANIMALS CHEERED. THE OTHER HALF GROANED.

Mama Squirrel is particularly displeased. Being stuck for six more weeks in a hole in a tree with her little nutters is making her nuts!

"I JUST CALL IT LIKE I SEE IT!" GROUNDHOG MUMBLED.

The restive early spring advocates are disgruntled by the message and berate the messenger. Poor Groundhog ducks back down into his den and lays low until spring finally appears in its own time.

At last everyone comes out to forage, Mama Squirrel still lamenting that berries six weeks earlier would have tasted better, while Hare lavishly praises Groundhog for giving her fur coat extra time to become even more luxurious and proffers a basket of berries to her benefactor.

THIS EXCHANGE DID NOT GO UNNOTICED.

Suddenly, Groundhog finds himself everybody's new best friend. Mama Squirrel invites her "old pal Groundhoggy" to sit with her and share some peanuts at the opening baseball game, with a hint that perhaps he can return the favor next February 2. Despite his protests that he can't control the weather, Groundhog finds a lot of his would-be friends also vying to grease his palms with a little payola for a promise of an early spring.

Coach Sparrow offers him a special perk, a position on the baseball team, to sweeten the deal for an early spring training next year, and Hare drops by with a pie in the way of a counter offer for fur-growing chill. Bear offers an obvious bribe for more sack time next spring, and soon even our virtuous hognosticator finds himself giving in to the inducements of his opinionated public with vague promises to both sides.

But he knows this popularity can't last. Spring will come when it comes no matter what. Either way, someone is going to be feel cheated. Groundhog spends a winter of discontent doing some serious thinking, with musings of "First to thine own self be true."

And on Groundhog's Day, Mother Nature doesn't make it any easier. It dawns chilly and--the whistlepig's worse nightmare--partly cloudy. Groundhog sighs as he pokes his head out of his hole.

"I'M SORRY, EVERYONE.

I CALL IT LIKE I SEE IT!" HE SAYS.

It's a victory for honest public servants, in Kristen Remener's Groundhog's Dilemma (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2015). Author Remener tells her tale well, laying out the temptations to please the public in a little parable of local politics for young readers, and artist Matt Faulkner uses his noted skills to make the self-serving motives of the characters comically evident in his clever illustrations. With a piquant little story for this admittedly minor "holiday" that broaches the subject of public honesty lightly but clearly, this is one of the best of this year's bunch for Groundhog's Day. Say the Kirkus reviewer, "Remenar's graceful prose and the subtlety of her message, pitched to older preschoolers and early-elementary students, are a good match. A sly and funny take on truth-telling and friendship."

For an absolute glut of February 2 tales, see my Groundhog Roundup here.

Love's Labors Lost?... : One Bright Ring by Gretchen Geser

ONE BIG SMILE
ONE LITTLE HOLE
ONE BRIGHT RING
FALLS TO THE GROUND.
A GIRL CRIES, "HEY!"

Everyone loves a lover, and even a young girl out for a stroll with Mom knows that romance is on the mind of a red-haired young man with a big smile and and huge bouquet of roses in his hand. He is surely hurrying to meet the girl of his dreams and pop the big question!

But--hold the violins!

A ring--THE RING--has just fallen through a hole in his jacket pocket and bounced across the sidewalk to land at the little girl's feet..

Our girl is honest and she instantly figures out that that one bright ring is soon going to be sorely missed. Pulling her mother behind her, she dashes after the young man. But just as she calls out to him, TWO jackhammers commence their racket at the curb, and the young man never hears her cry. With THREE tugs on Mom's arm, she runs after the young man, but a wide stroller with FOUR babies blocks her way. Just as she gets around the tots, a dog walker comes into view with FIVE frisky hounds trying to go in five different directions at the same time. Then there are SIX signs on the corner, and one of them sadly says STOP! The young man is totally out of sight!

But our girl has the heart of a true romantic, and she is sure he must be meeting his sweetheart in a lovely little pocket park nearby. With a regretful look, she passes a bakery with SEVEN enticing cupcakes on a tiered stand and keeps on going. Then she sees the red-haired suitor through the trees. As she draws near, she tiptoes EIGHT quiet steps to peer through some bushes, and there is the young man with his intended. She is holding her roses and the young man is reaching for the ring. He looks in his pocket NINE times--frantically--with TEN tears running down his cheeks. Suddenly our girl knows just what to do to make this scene turn out just the way the young man had dreamed!

Gretchen Geser's just-published One Bright Ring (Henry Holt, 2013) is an appealing story of love's labors (nearly) lost which also manages to be a counting book and a sweet little treatise on honesty to boot. Geser's cityscape is simple but charming, making use of the motif of the silent observer, in this case a little black cat who watches from every page as the story unfolds. Geser even makes good use of that meme of the moment--the cupcake--as her final page shows our heroine back at the bakery, a cupcake in hand, as she gazes happily in the show window at a wedding cake with a miniature of the happy couple in the park right on top. All's well that ends well in this little morality demi-drama,  with, as Publishers Weekly puts it, "an air of both excitement and romance."

Stealin' Wheels: Ben Rides On by Matt Davies

NOW THAT HE HAD THE BICYCLE OF HIS DREAMS, BEN LUKIN LOVED GOING TO SCHOOL.

WITH HIS GLEAMING NEW MACHINE, HE COULD TAKE THE LONG WAY,

OR PERHAPS THE VERY LONG WAY.

At last Ben Lukin has wheels and his first ride to school is a bit of extreme biking which encourages a trip through a drainage tunnel and an exuberant Evel Knievel jump over five school buses!

But Ben's new wheels catch the eye of the wrong guy, the official class bully:

SSADLY, ADRIAN UNDERBITE, PERHAPS THE WORLD'S LARGEST THIRD GRADER, DIDN'T SEEM TO LIKE BEN VERY MUCH.

With a evil, gleeful look that dares Ben to do anything about it, the enormous Underbite appropriates Ben's new bike and rides off on it gleefully, leaving the crestfallen Ben to hoof it home, with only a pesky crow for company.

But as Ben trudges along, he hears a loud WWWGGRRAAWWWWWWW!

Following the wretched cry, Ben peers over the edge of a cliff and sees his bike bent and broken at the bottom and a terrified Adrian Underbite clinging precariously to the limb of a tiny tree growing not far below the edge of the precipice.

"HOW EXTRAORDINARILY TERRIBLE!" grins Ben in mock horror.

Satisfied that Adrian Underbite has gotten his just desserts, Ben walks away.

But after few steps Ben's conscience kicks in and he reconsiders the situation.

JUST WHEN ADRIAN THOUGHT HE COULD NOT HOLD ON ANY LONGER, A VERY FAMILIAR GREEN-AND-WHITE HOODIE APPEARED.  ADRIAN REACHED UP AND GRABBED FOR DEAR LIFE.

Does the rescued Underbite have a change of heart? Does he beg for forgiveness from his rescuer? Are the two set to be best friends forever? Well, no. He grabs Ben's beat-up bike and lumbers off on his size 10 feet with it. Sadly, Ben slogs homeward, believing that indeed, as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

But there's an unforeseen and redeeming ending to Matt Davies' delightful little morality tale, the just published Ben Rides On (Roaring Brook, 2013).  Pulitizer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Davies makes his debut with this engaging picture book that offers literal cliff-hanging suspense and scratchy-lined, comic illustrations, with its hero Ben all attenuated long limbs and large head, the hulking bully Underbite, loutish and lumpen, and even a nosy, crabby crow who pitches in to help Ben haul Adrian up over the cliff's edge. While Davies' drawings are highly stylized, his body language and funny facial expressions add to the humor that permeates this book which surprisingly ends on an upbeat note, promising many pedaling adventures ahead for Ben.

"Facial expressions, gestures, postures, perspectives: all conspire, with a ragged, raucous elegance, to make Ben Rides On an exceptional, and exceptionally likable, tale," says School Library Journal.