The Perfect Shade of Green by Brian Barlics

Rating: WORTHY!

From the same team which brought us Brady Needs a Nightlight, which I favorably reviewed in January 2016, this young childrens poetry/picture book is another charmer.

Illustrated charmingly and very colorfully by Gregory Burgess Jones, this is a poetic story about a chameleon who refuses to change her spots – or…well, you know what I mean – is a delight. Cami is so at ease in her own skin, she feels no need to change to match her surroundings. In real life this would be a disaster, but for a children’s story, this is a fun lesson in how to be yourself and not let others tell you who you are. I wish more teenagers would learn that lesson! Unfortunately for them, this is aimed at a much younger audience.

There are some dangers in trying to write the write children’s story to match your teaching aim. For example, this one risks being identified solely as a story about race or specifically about skin color, but it’s about much more than that: it’s about the whole person, regardless of race or color. Cami strolls around at her own pace and is proud of her green glow, so she doesn’t try to hide it, not by dark or by light, not by day or by night, not by flower or by tree, not by bird or by bee! She had very little respect for the chameleon which tries to match the colors of the rainbow, but she had no problem sporting a pink tutu on her travels. That’s her individual choice, too.

I’m not sure that Cami fully realizes that it’s her individuality that shines out far more than her green skin does, but I don’t doubt she’ll realize it as she grows up, strong as she is. I liked this story and the gentle, easy poetry and I recommend it as a worthy read.

Brady Needs a Nightlight by Brian Barlics, Gregory Burgess Jones

Rating: WORTHY!

This story, part of the 'Fundamentales' written in poetic quatrains by Brian Barlics, and illustrated quaintly by Gregory Burgess Jones

This is scary tale to tell 'e, of Brady Bat, a nervous nellie. It matters not if dark or light, Brady is shut down with fright! What can he do, he has no clue! Then one dark and scary night, young Brady Bat, he sees the light! Renewed now is his constitution, because of Brady's bright solution! There. That's done me in for a week or two!

I really liked this story, although I would have liked it better if Brady had first approached someone else with his fears. I don't think it's a good idea to send any kind of message to a child that she is on her own, and that friends, parents, relatives, guardians, older siblings, teachers, and so on aren't really of any help. The story still could have had these people fail to come up with a remedy, and Brady could have gone on to find his own amusing solution. Here's a spoiler, to clue you in: luciferase, luciferin!

One thing about this that I thought was great fun was that the bats are often shown hanging upside down (of course! what self-respecting bat doesn't enjoy a good diurnal inversion?), so if you read this to your child and have the kids it opposite you, they will see the bats standing up. I don't know why, but for some reason that amuses the heck out of me!

One caveat is that the text is way small. I can't speak for a print version of this, but it was only just legible on an iPad, and completely useless on a phone. I don't recommend asking an older person to read this to your kids unless the have great eyesight or a really good pair of eyeglasses! Why so many writers make their text so small in children's books, I cannot fathom.

On the iPad the pages are less than four inches square, and yes, you can enlarge them, but that's a pain to have to keep dicking around with the page size to read small text and then view the whole image. Part of the problem was that the pages in the iPad were laid out end to end like a film strip rather than as pages, and sometimes they became "sticky" and wouldn't swipe. When I tried enlarging them to fit the screen size, they tended to scoot to one edge of the screen instead of staying centered. I don't know what's up with that. I do know that Amazon has created a really crappy ebook reader with its Kindle app, so I wouldn't blame the author or (for once!) the publisher for this snafu. I can say that if I were going to buy this for some kid, I'd get the print version, not the ebook - except not the one Amazon is asking almost eight hundred dollars for!

Despite these issues, I did like this little book, and I consider it a worthy read.