WHEN GIANTS COME TO PLAY

A day of play, with two reeeeeeeeeally big friends. Beaty’s economical and straightforward text describes Anna’s day of fun with her two giant pals—one grinning widely in an orange bowler and matching vest and the other wearing overalls with a sharp beak of a nose and a shock of coarse black hair shooting straight up. She leaves the humor to Hawkes’s bold illustrations in charcoal pencil and acrylic paint. For example, “They play catch by a gnarled oak tree” is the text accompanying a picture of the giants tossing Anna back and forth. And at the end of the day, there’s a close-up of Anna resting in a hammock. The next page widens the view showing, instead of trees, the sleeping giants holding up the hammock with their buttons. Size (most of the oversized illustrations are two-pagers) should enhance the comic appeal for very young audiences. A slight story, but Beaty’s language and Hawkes’s pictures make it enormously appealing. (Picture book. 3-6)