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THIS BOOK HAS ALPACAS AND BEARS by Rikin Parekh

THIS BOOK HAS ALPACAS AND BEARS

by Rikin Parekh ; illustrated by Emma Perry

Pub Date: April 20th, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-63570-5
Publisher: David Fickling/Scholastic

Alfonso the alpaca is surrounded by books, and not one is about an alpaca.

Alfonso’s lawn is covered with enormous piles of titles about bears, like Be More Bear! He knows what he must do to remedy this: write a book starring a charming alpaca. Unfortunately, this storyline calls attention to one of the main problems with this picture book: The act of writing—not to mention “rewriting and correcting”—a story isn’t all that exciting to watch. Other scenes are slightly irritating. Due to his writer’s block, Alfonso spends most of the first half of the book begging his friend Colin to be his co-author. This is odd, because Colin is a bear. It also highlights the other big problem with the story: The central metaphor doesn’t work. Anyone who feels underrepresented in books—women and minorities, for example—may be frustrated to hear Colin say that “alpacas are noisy, clumsy, careless, and REALLY annoying.” They may be even more frustrated when Alfonso, rather than accepting his own self-worth, tries to impress his closed-minded friend with spectacular tricks. But that does lead to the funniest section of the story, as Alfonso hums nursery rhymes backward and performs “four-legged splits in MIDAIR!” Perry’s cartoons of a skateboarding alpaca are hysterical, and the book works just fine at surface level, as a story about an insecure writer looking for support wherever he can get it. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.5-by-18.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 38.4% of actual size.)

Alpacas may be hilarious, but they make lousy allegories.

(alpaca facts) (Picture book. 4-7)