Anyone else totally love Bill Peet? I loved his books as a child, and now as an adult, I'm buying them for my own private collection
BBAD, too bad! Check them out, you won't be disappointed. The stories are great (usually stories of successful underdog-type characters) and the pictures are awesome. Bill Peet (now deceased) did animation for Disney back in the day, before writing his own books. Personally I recommend "The Scary Tail of Prewitt Peacock" - and yes, that's t-a-i-l, not a typo!
I love Bill Peet! I actually never heard of him as a child, but I came across "Wump World" in a used bookstore a few years back. He does a great job taking the scary subjects of over-development and environmental devastation, and combining them with the right amount of humor and hope, to help boost a child's awareness without frightening them. Great stuff!
FuzzyGreen - what I like best is how he takes the sad, marginalized animals (the ones who just don't seem to "fit in" with the normal ones lol) and make them heroes. Like with Huge Harold, no one likes him because he's so big, so they send him away. He's sad, has no where to live ... and then everything changes for him It's heart-warming, and tells kids that it's ok to be different. Everyone fits in somewhere!
one of my favourite books was similar to that...it was called "But no Elephants" by Jerry Smath http://www.rwrinnovations.com/cq_products/but_no_elephants.htm
Loved Huge Harold and Cowardly Clyde as a kid. His illustrations were something else. I want to read all of them. Good topic : )