Different Strokes for Different Blokes! Digby Differs by Miriam Koch

DIGBY WAS A SHEEP--A VERY SPECIAL SHEEP.

AND IT MADE HIM FEEL VERY ALONE.

Digby, with his two-toned fleece, certainly stands out in a flock. His stylized red stripes certainly make him a singular sheep. So when a red-striped hot-air balloon sails by in the sky, Dixby takes it for a omen and follows it over hill and dale.

Digby takes heart when he comes to a town.  There's an awning with wide red stripes a-la-Digby, although it doesn't seem to offer him much of a welcome  Similarly, a warning sign, a trash can, and and unrecycled red-and-white paper cup share his colors but offer no companionship. But when a streamlined train with a red stripe along the side of its cars pulls into the station, Digby decides to give it a try and hitches a ride in the baggage car loaded with red-striped boxes of mail.

"I WONDER WHERE THESE BOXES ARE GOING," HE SAID.

"SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT?"

When Digby wakes up, he finds his box on the doorstep of a lighthouse on the coast, a red-and-white striped lighthouse. Maybe he has found a place to fit in at last.

Miriam Koch's Digby Differs (Peter Pauper Press, 2013), like its died-in-the-wool hero, is definitely a different book, squat and long, designed to show off the various horizontal landscapes through which Digby follows his fortunes. Koch's light-touch artwork is charmingly executed, the naive but hopeful Digby following his own version of color coding. Bright touches of Digby red draw him across the the linear landscape, from hillside pasture to cityscape to sandy seaside shore, all invitingly drawn and colored with what the New York Times reviewer calls "... hues a catalog copywriter might describe as oxblood, flan and café au lait, with a mushy-pea green added for the vitamins." Definitely a different drummer book.

Hide That Hide! Hide and Sheep by Andrea Beaty

"WAKE UP! WAKE UP! FARMER MCFITT!

YOU HAVE SHEEP TO SHEAR AND CLOTHES TO KNIT!"

McFitt's flock, up to this time snoozing warmly in comfy piles around the good farmer's bedchamber, are jolted awake with the unpleasant prospect of a shearing. If they want to avoid close shaves, it's time to hide their hides!

And McFitt's flock is on to the ploy of hiding in plain view, and they know all the right places to pull the wool, so to speak, over his eyes. Where better to hide than in a place chock-full of animals?

TEN FRISKY RAMS RUN AWAY TO THE ZOO.
TO MEET AN OKAPI, A KIND KANGAROO,

A SPOTTED GIRAFFE WITH HIS HEAD IN THE TREES;
THEY HANG OUT AND PLAY WITH THE WILD CHIMPANZEES.

As they count down their numbers, the remainders blend into the circus side shows, catch a bit of grazing in the outfield at the baseball park, hide among the audience in a movie theatre, pose as sculptures at the museum, and peek from the stacks at the public library:

NOVELS AND POETRY! ALL OF IT FREE!
THEY NOSH AND THEY NIBBLE FROM A DOWN TO Z.

McFitt's flock fleece the farmer in Andrea Beaty's brand-new Hide and Sheep (Margaret K. Elderry Books, 2011) as the sheep go on a jolly jaunt around town, pursued by McFitt with his shears. Beaty's rhythmic couplets keep the story hoofing it along, aided by Bill Meyer's clever ink and watercolor illustrations. Kids will enjoy the chase and will giggle as the fluffy fugitives find ways to hide themselves in public, and grown-up narrators will enjoy the visual humor Meyer tucks into the illustrations for adult eyes to spot. All's well that ends swell, and McFitt finally accomplishes his feat of fleecing his flock and knitting up their wool for wintry days in this latest exercise in now-you-see-them-now-you-don't chases.

It's weather for sweaters, and just in time for a bully woolly chase.