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Summary
Summary
Chameleon can turn himself into anything and appear to fit in anywhere, but it seems that neither the swirly snail, the green grasshopper nor the striped sock want to be friends. Will he ever find someone to talk to? Someone just like him?
With a subtle and witty interplay between words and illustrations this introduction to colors and shapes (and chameleons!) is sure to delight kids of all ages.
Author Notes
Emily Gravett is the author and illustrator of many children's books, including Matilda's Cat , Again! , Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears (winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal), Meerkat Mail , Tidy , and Old Hat . Her first book, Wolves , was the winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award for Illustration. Her second book, Orange Pear Apple Bear , was a Quills Award finalist, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, and on the shortlist for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Emily lives in Brighton, England, with her partner, their daughter, and the family dog. Visit her at EmilyGravett.com.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-K-A clever concept book with emotional punch and magnificent art is a rare treat. In Gravett's latest triumph, readers meet a despondent chameleon on the front endpapers. He searches for a companion, transforming himself to mirror the objects he finds: a yellow banana, a pink cockatoo, a swirly snail. Each spread sports only two words, plus the chameleon's speech bubble. "Howdy," he says to the cowboy boot. For "Gold fish," he contorts his body into a fishy shape, stares plaintively at the fish across the page, and speaks in empty air bubbles. No one will return his greeting, and finally he crawls onto a gray rock and gives up. The next page is completely white, save for the embossed outline of the chameleon. But what's that reaching from the next page and tapping the chameleon on the tail? The page turn reveals a new friend, and the two chameleons-now rainbow hued from joy-walk off the endpapers together. Libraries may choose to remove the dust jacket rather than tape over the story's ending. While the simple text is appropriate for toddlers, the book is clever enough for older children to enjoy. Gravett's design and art are exceptional, from the masterful use of white space down to the concrete poem of a chameleon created with the copyright and publication information.-Suzanne Myers Harold, Multnomah County Library System, Portland, OR (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this small-scale but lively diversion, Greenaway Medalist Gravett (Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears) explores the possibilities of chameleon friendship-or even love. "I'm lonely," a blue chameleon says, knobby elbows scrunched sadly on knobby knees. If a chameleon is blue, whom does he woo? "Hi," says the chameleon on the left-hand page to a banana on the right; he's curved his body and changed his skin to match the banana. "Hello Hello Hello," he says to an unimpressed pink cockatoo, turning pink and angling his arms to duplicate her wings. A "swirly" snail, a brown boot, a "stripy" sock (the book also functions as a light primer on colors and patterns)-the chameleon can make himself look like anything. He can even turn white and disappear into the page (a white varnished outline shows him lying along the foot of the spread). Worry not: a happy ending is in store. As always, Gravett's art charms; colored pencil lines on rough paper give the pages warmth, and the chameleon's "disguises" repay attention as readers spot similarities to and differences from the things the chameleon mimics. Ages 2-6. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Many a picture-book quest culminates in the happy discovery of others resembling the seeker. Visually, the lonely chameleon here could fit in anywhere. He adapts not only color but stance and action to mimic hoped-for friends -- the svelte curve of a banana or a tail spiraled like a snail's shell; he hops expectantly after a grasshopper or, dejected, slumps on a rock. Finally, of course, he meets a member of his own species, to joy (and multicolored patterning) on both sides. This simple scenario garners deeper meaning from its illustrations, beginning with the jacket image of a pensive, literally blue chameleon, angular elbows on angular knees, rendered in colored pencil modulated by rough textured paper on a flat ground of paler blue. Only the title word Chameleon sports different colors -- as will the protagonist as he strives to conform with such inappropriate friends as a striped sock ("Can I hang out with you?") and even (in a delightfully tactile spread where he's outlined in shiny white) the page itself. This elaboration of the simplest of concepts suggests multiple uses, from exploring the moods in the spare, expressive art to recapturing the events, and the minimal dialogue, in dramatic play. joanna rudge long (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Playful and spare, this nearly wordless picture book from a multi-award-winning British author-illustrator tells a deceptively simple story of self-acceptance. A lonely chameleon, shown first in indigo and aquamarine body shades to reflect his blue mood, tries to make friends, and on each spread, he morphs into colors and forms that resemble his potential pals: yellow and crescent-shaped when he approaches a banana; pink and tufted as he chases after a cockatoo; a purple polka-dot coil as he rolls toward a beach ball. Finally, he sighs, I give up, before receding, in barely perceptible, 3-D lines of glossy ink, into a white page. Then he spots another chameleon, wildly colored and patterned, just like him, and the two rejoice. The story's concept loses a bit of steam on this last spread. (Is the message to make friends with those of your own kind?) But children will enjoy the humor and detail in the beautiful colored-pencil illustrations, strikingly contrasted against blank white pages, and they'll recognize the chameleon's elemental struggle to fit in and connect.--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2010 Booklist
