Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown (review)

Mr. Tiger is tired of his prim world of biped animals in petticoats and top hats, and he comes up with a wild idea: he'll walk on all fours. After gallivanting about for a few days, much to everyone else's dismay, he decides to go a step further and shed his suit. This is too much for the community, which insists he leave. Mr. Tiger lives in the jungle for some time, only to realize that he misses his friends, so he returns to the city, where he finds that he's instigated a revolution where he and everyone else feel free to be whomever they like. Although the story hits some familiar notes, Brown's illustrations—gouache, watercolor, ink, and pencil elements digitally assembled—ensure that it's divertingly and smartly told. The animals populating the early twentieth-century city are comically boxy and flat, with beady eyes and stoic expressions, while the wilder environments are whimsically textured with speckles and squiggles, as well as the thick feathering of gouache and the mottled richness of watercolor. Mr. Tiger's transition to all fours is visually narrated through iterations of his vertical figure progressively lower on the page while his eyes shiftily move about—followed by a striking full-spread of a grinning (still-suited) Mr. Tiger in an experimental four-legged pose. Use this as an entertaining contrast to Willems' Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed (BCCB 2/09), or just brush up on your best snooty storytime accent and let the stodginess satire rip.