WANDERMELON

An unfettered fruit vine presents a learning opportunity about free will.

“A seed was sprouting near Farmer Brown’s ditch,” its vine quickly marching across the field. “Day by day it freely spread,” splitting and stretching across neighboring properties. The not unwelcome guest hurtles around town until finally resting; then the melon starts to grow. Unfortunately, one avaricious fellow has to go and spoil everything, demanding payment from those who want to see (or smell or tap) the melon. The townsfolk immediately grow covetous. “Each individual thought the watermelon belonged to them. But nobody thought to ask the watermelon to whom it belonged. The watermelon belonged to itself, and it wanted to be free.” The ungovernable fruit charts its own course, leaving the town youth to remind the elders: That which is wild should remain untamed. Kramer’s compact text is tucked into white spaces amid Bamieh’s soft, watercolorlike full-page illustrations, with distinctive portraiture and two sweeping gatefolds, the thriving vine and its elaborate root system rendered in glorious detail. Reminiscent in plot of Terry and Eric Fan’s It Fell From the Sky (2021), this tale pits acquisitiveness against autonomy and community-mindedness and offers a lesson of gentle moral intelligence for a wide range of young readers. Characters vary in skin tone.

A sweet and frolicsome modern fable.