After all 10 turtles make their exits, they reconvene on the pond floor to 'settle for the night.' Working in collages of papers, birch bark and leaf prints, Falwell makes every aqua-hued spread come alive with texture, both visually and ecologically. Into each spread, Falwell tucks a clue as to the next offender: in one, it's a fawn's spotted back, in another the feather of a chickadee floats on the pond's surface. First, a plump emerald bullfrog in flight reduces the group to nine several pages later, the fluttering presence of a burnished brown butterfly knocks the number down to three. Various creatures send them scuttling for cover off their log, one by one, and into the variegated blueness of the pond.

(Picture book.Falwell's ( Where's Nicky?) combination of counting book and nature tale, in an idyllic pond setting, begins with 'Ten timid turtles, lounging in a line.' These attractive Eastern Painted Turtles (identified at story's end), with sweetly placid eyes, intricate stripes and loops of yellow and orange on their shells and bodies, appear on every spread-but decrease in number with each turn of the page. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam-but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages.

Clowning Around by Cathryn Falwell