Children's Books: ‘Everyday Bean' by Stephanie Graegin

Wall Street Journal

2 days ago

Stephanie Graegin uses observant lines of text and affectionate, detailed illustrations to tell 10 short stories about a tiny hedgehog named Bean in 'Everyday Bean.' Most of the tales in this humane and beguiling collection for children ages 3-7 run no longer than a handful of lines over three or four pages. In one, Bean has great success in spooking other forest creatures by pretending to be a ghost: 'I'm much better at this than I expected,' she thinks. She is looking forward to making her grandmother jump, too, but day turns to night and still Grandma (who is also a hedgehog) has not emerged from the house. Bean eventually shouts her hope that the old lady will come outside. 'Absolutely not!' Grandma shouts from inside. 'There's a ghost out there!'
A ghost figures in the cavalcade of horribles summoned at bedtime in the humorous rhyming pages of Huw Aaron's 'Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob.' In most respects, this lullaby for readers ages 4-8 runs according to type, with a parent ushering a child through the stages of evening ritual—teeth-brushing, bath-taking, pajama-donning—and saying tender things at tuck-in and lights-out. The difference is that the protagonists here are heaps of green slime (with googly eyes and cheery smiles) and the characters the narrator enlists are not winsome animals or cute human children but creepy creatures such as minotaurs, mummies and vampires. 'Closed is the Cyclops's glowering eye. / Steady is the Brain's gentle throb,' we read. 'Settled and snoring is the Beast of the Moor. / Shush now, my horrible Blob.' It will not be to every parent's taste for an author to make light of demons and evil, as Mr. Aaron briefly does here, but the less finicky are likely to relish this entertaining variation on an old nursery staple.
A stormy confrontation leads to domestic bliss in 'The Fierce Little Woman and the Wicked Pirate,' a revival of Joy Cowley's 1984 text with new illustrations by Miho Satake. The fierce little woman, as we see her, is a redhead who lives in a house at the end of a jetty. During the day she knits and plays bagpipes. At night she enjoys listening to 'the sea breathing in and out under her door.' When a wicked pirate asks to be allowed into her home, the fierce little woman refuses to admit him. (In earlier editions, this fellow was haughty, pale and Captain Hook-ish; here he is a brawny sea dog with a dark complexion and a big gold earring.) Only when the pirate confesses his fear of the dark does the woman relent, and in short order the two are married. Happy scenes of the husband and wife later gamboling with their three children ('who are never fierce, and only sometimes wicked') give warmth and charm to this picture book for readers ages 4-6.