GEORGE PEARCE AND HIS HUGE MASSIVE EARS

Do George’s big, round ears bring in too many opinions from the people around him?

This pinkish cartoony figure of a boy with black hair and very large circular protuberances coming out of his head has a problem (but it’s not the fact that his ears knock things over). He can hear “things on the sly. // But the trouble with hearing each word that is said… / Well, soon the words started to fill George’s head.” George can’t make any decisions. He spends too much time trying to decide if he likes pink or blue (after hearing children arguing over stereotypical gender choices) or which games or toys or names are his favorites (this British import uses British spellings, “colours” and “favourites”). When he encounters children and adults in public (both with realistic skin tones and with green and purple faces too), the words all meld together into “BLAH, BLAH, BLAH,” written all over the background in visual cacophony. Finally, George decides just to listen to himself. He chooses pink as his favorite color, selects his favorite toy and game, and picks his own name as the best. He discovers that when he is himself, other people can appreciate him too. The appealing digital illustrations with their childlike images and strong background colors are humorous, but the rhyming story is reminiscent of many others about self-esteem.

Nothing original here, but this is an amusing-enough way of looking at the issue of becoming your own person