An Appetite For Flowers

It is a well known fact that goats will quickly devour just about anything put before them.  Huck is a mountain goat and while he will eat cardboard boxes, woolly gloves and birds' nests, what really makes his taste buds tingle are flowers; lots and lots of flowers.  When he gets a whiff of those delectable delicacies Huck Runs Amuck!  Author Sean Taylor starts this tale as Huck faces a serious dilemma.  It would seem that he is not the only goat that enjoys such a meal.  His mountainside is nearly devoid of flowers except for a clump at the tippy-top of a narrow, needle-pointed peak. 

And---UH-OH...he's not going to try that impossible climb, is he?

But of course he does. Then the rollicking, laugh-out loud escapade gets into full bumping and thumping motion.  From the mountainside, to the village of Polkadot, up on Mrs. Tuppleton's clothesline, down to a pile of boxes outside Mr. Hartwig's General Store, up to a bridge, then down to a boy on a bicycle, then up to a church spire Huck pursues flowers in every shape and form---fresh, fake or printed---he can not resist.

Listeners and readers alike will also not be able to resist chiming in each time a floral opportunity is presented to Huck with the questioning and answering refrain.  Is our blundering billy doomed to a flowerless fate?  At the pinnacle point in the plot will Huck consume or zoom into the waiting arms of Mrs. Spooner?  Sean Taylor delivers a sometimes rhyming, sometimes repetitious but always flat out fun frolic from cover to cover.

Peter H. Reynolds, author and illustrator of Ish, The Dot, The North Star and So Few of Me, has combined tea, watercolor and ink to give Huck his large bug-eyed, buck-toothed, bearded appearance that is nothing short of hilarious.  Huck has an air of exaggerated goofiness that invites, no demands, laughter.  And laugh you will again and again.

Both you and I know that just because the final page is turned and the cover is closed, that one, two or  perhaps a whole bunch of voices will call out---Read it again!  Read it again!  Please!