Peck, Peck, Peck by Lucy Cousins (review)

A daddy woodpecker teaches his young woodpecker how to peck a hole in a tree ("Now hold on tight./ That's very good./ Then peck, peck, peck, peck, peck the wood"). The young woodpecker heads off to a small house where he pecks a hole first in the gate, then the front door, then just about everything he can find within the home ("I peck, peck, peck a magazine,/ a picture of Aunt Geraldine,/ an armchair, a teddy bear,/ and a book called Jane Eyre"). The playful repetition of the pecking is enhanced by die-cut apertures, with every woodpecker hole is literally hole-punched through the page. In the earlier part of the book, there are only a few holes, but by the time the young woodpecker has mastered his pecking, the page are blanketed with perforations. The rhymed text is a little simplistic, relying on assonant lists ("an eggplant, a tangerine, / a butter dish, a nectarine, / a green bean, a sardine, / and seventeen jelly beans"), and there is little plot to drive the pecking of objects. The draw here is therefore mostly visual, with Cousins' signature expansive fields of bold, bright gouache outlined in thick black lines. This is no morality tale; on the contrary, there are absolutely no repercussions for the havoc-wreaking young bird, a detail that some young listeners, who know that birds are not supposed to peck holes in dustpans, dirty laundry, and dog bowls, may enjoy disputing. The novelty of the holes will likely distract them from this challenge, however, and they'll enjoy poking at the pecking and winding down as the little woodpecker's daddy tucks the tired bird into bed for the night.