The Jungle Grapevine. by Alex Beard

Publishers Weekly

Birds, snakes, gazelles and other African animals, rendered in stylized pen, ink and watercolor art, inadvertently pass along misinformation in this clever take on the familiar game of telephone. The ruckus begins when a geometrically patterned turtle comments, “The Watering Hole is always good for a laugh.... But lately the humor has been drying up.” Bird then tells Elephant that the Watering Hole is drying up, prompting a rumor of drought that gets twisted into fears of flood and news of mass migration. Debut author Beard's illustrations, which reveal characters in constant motion, bypass mere naturalism to evoke the creatures' emotional states and personalities (the bodies of a startled flock of flamingoes are defined by bold spirals that resemble treble clefs; music notes blast from an elephant's trunk while animals in the borders play trumpets and horns). A substantial black border focuses the action like a camera lens, as additional creatures and flora spill out into the edges. Beard neatly brings the story full circle, but paves the way for a new round of misunderstandings. Dryly witty and visually compelling. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

Children's Literature - Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz

Bear has set his variation on the old game of "Telephone" on the African savanna. In his succinct text, Turtle and Bird are walking under the African sun. Turtle notes that the humor he has found in the Watering Hole has been drying up. Bird flies off, contemplating what he thinks Turtle said and encounters Elephant. To him he reports only the "drying up." So, the miscommunication grows. Upset at the thought of drought, Elephant trumpets to Snake that the Watering Hole is dry. Examining it himself, Snake tells Crocodile that it "issss not too dry." It might flood. Alarmed, Crocodile stirs the flamingos. The startled Gazelle sprints away. Lion then thinks the migration has begun, but finds only Hippo at the Watering Hole. Bird then misinterprets Hippo's remarks and the rumors fly again. The very brief text is set like captions under the double-page illustrations in their thin, black borders, with animals dancing around outside them. Beard's pen and ink and washy watercolors have an innocence that provides basic naturalism with his personal interpretations. He is concerned with the page designs, the overall esthetic appeal as well as such action as the crocodile's leap for a flamingo. The animals dominate the scenes, needing only the sketchiest of settings in which to set their performance. The end pages house a pictorial map showing the landscape and all the animals. A note by the author adds information on his time in Africa from which he has drawn the story. Reviewer: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz

School Library Journal

K-Gr 3—Grapevine immediately announces itself as playfully idiomatic. When Bird isn't certain of what Turtle's told him (the watering hole's humor is "drying up"), he sparks a series of misunderstandings. He tells Elephant that the watering hole itself is drying up. As word spreads from Elephant to Snake to Crocodile, and so on, the confusion builds as the animals are caught in an unintended game of telephone. The simple pen-and-ink and watercolor spreads are imaginative and employ a picture frame that the unruly animals often break through. Beard uses a subtle palette as well as brightly colored pages with plenty of white space. Budding artists will appreciate the humor of the elegantly stylized illustrations. This offering is ripe for lessons on idiomatic expressions, rumors, gossip, the age-old game of telephone, and life at an African watering hole.—Teresa Pfeifer, Alfred Zanetti Montessori Magnet School, Springfield, MA

Kirkus Reviews

Imbuing a game of "Telephone" with elements of Chicken Little's hysteria, Beard focuses on the animals dwelling around a watering hole in a fictive African landscape. Turtle comments to Bird, "The Watering Hole is always good for a laugh . . . .But lately the humor has been drying up." Bird mistakenly conveys to Elephant that the watering hole is drying up, thereby starting a cascade of further misunderstandings that finally circle back to another incipient misread by Bird at tale's end. Beard's experiences in Kenya and other African countries lend authority to the tale, but its agreeable premise is muddied by textual confusion and reliance on children's dubious ability to comprehend metaphor. Pale watercolors convey the heat and the rich array of wildlife in black-bordered double-page spreads. Outside some borders, thumbnails provide additional depictions of wildlife-insects, wildebeests, zebras-and extend the text's humor. Regrettably, this visual enhancement is not employed throughout, flattening the panache. One wonders, too, about the choice of "Jungle" for the title, since the setting, depicted in charming endpaper maps, appears to be a savanna. (author's note) (Picture book. 4-7)