On With The Show! The Farm That Mac Built by Tammi Sauer

There's no business like show business!

And when a cast of the usual farm animals decide to put on a barn show, Scarecrow the empressario puts together a troup of Vaudeville wannabes all ready to wow their audience.

A couple of hens with flashlights flap up to the rafters to provide the stage lighting, the curtains open, and the pigs sashay out with their top hats and canes and begin to do the old soft shoe. But the tap of their trotters is followed by waltzing cows in ballroom gowns...

THAT LIVE ON THE FARM THAT JACK BUILT!

and NOW...

... MONKEYS!?

Oh, dear! These don't belong on the farm!

Emcee Scarecrow shoos the monkeys offstage in time for the next scheduled act--Sheep That Leap--but their dance is interrupted by break-dancing...

KANGAROOS?

And scarcely has the next scheduled act, the horse (NEIGH!) begun his one-man-band gig with a concertina jig when a pair of Viking elephants give the rest a scare. The cast scatters to hide behind the scenery until...

... a troup of hatching eggs jiggle out and with a chorus of cracks, out comes a brood of baby...

PENGUINS?

But the show must go on! That's show biz at Old Mac's Farm, in Tammi Sauer's latest, The Farm That Mac Built, a comical mashup of two nursery songs, "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and "This Is the House that Jack Built" that combines zoo animals and farm animals in one of the whackiest casts that ever trod the boards together. With funny illustrations by author-illustrator Jackie Urbanavic (creator of the hilarious Duck at the Door (Max the Duck) series) (see my reviews here) this is one fractured folksong production that breaks the mold! Says School Library Journal, "Lots of word repetition and animal sound effects, combined with Urbanovic’s comically expressive cartoon illustrations, make this a rollicking read-aloud."

Don't Hurry! Be Happy! Slowly, Slowly, Slowly, Said the Sloth by Eric Carle

SLOWLY, SLOWLY, SLOWLY THE SLOTH CRAWLED ALONG A BRANCH OF A TREE.

ALL DAY LONG THE SLOTH HUNG UPSIDE DOWN.

As they make their way to and fro all day, the animals of the tropical forest can't help noticing that the sloth is not making much progress from day to day toward the end of that branch. The creepy-crawling caiman, the loud howler monkey, the flashy toucan, and the slashy, scary jaguar ask rather rude questions of the sloth, but he doesn't reply.

"WHY ARE YOU DO BORING?" ASKED THE ANTEATER.

The sloth thought and thought and thought, while the impatient ground dwellers waited for his answer. At last the sloth yawns, slowly, of course, and comes up with his reply.

"I KNOW THAT I AM LACKADAISIACAL, PLACID, AND MELLOW. THAT'S JUST HOW I AM!"

The sloth is truly an unusual animal, moving at a pace that can make a snail look speedy, staying so still for so long that greenish moses grow into its fur and serve as camouflage. A sloth moves so infrequently that moths and beetles can lay eggs and raise their young on his shaggy coat without ever leaving the neighborhood branch, as naturalist Jane Goodall explains in her forward to noted artist-author Eric Carle's "Slowly, Slowly, Slowly," said the Sloth (Penguin Books/Random House). 

For kids who like animals who move at a faster pace, Eric Carle provides a picture glossary of some of the swifter forest dwellers, such a spider monkeys, coatis, pumas, tapirs, macaws, quetzels, and anacondas, to name a few.

Carle's carefully executed collaged artwork has earned him a prominent place among picture book illustrators, and although he seems to admire the mellow moves of the sloth, living a life of peace, Carle's career has been a busy one, with many awards over his long career for books such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Busy Spider and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?