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Summary
Summary
"Luscious, creamy pages provide contrast for the large, well-spaced font and the dark furry figure... Children will chuckle as they view the pair doing everything together...Browne's exquisite interpretation of a real life gorilla is a welcome progression." -- SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL (starred review)
Once there was a very special gorilla who had almost everything he needed. There was only one thing he didn't have: a friend. With no other gorillas at the zoo, the keepers try something new. Will the gigantic ape strike a bond with another sort of creature, one as tiny and innocent as a kitten? Sparked by the story of a real gorilla who learned to sign, LITTLE BEAUTY is a celebration of a most surprising friendship.
Author Notes
Anthony Browne, a Hans Christian Andersen Medalist, is the author-illustrator of many acclaimed books for children, including SILLY BILLY. He lives in Kent, England.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Inspired by the story of Koko, the sign-language-fluent gorilla, and her pet kitten, Browne (Voices in the Park) imagines a similar interspecies friendship. His nameless signing gorilla seems to have everything he needs: a comfy chair (the upholstery looks positively Pierre Deux), a TV and a cheeseburger, but something is not right: the look on his face screams, "Is that all there is?" His ennui evaporates, however, with the arrival of a tiny kitten named Beauty. "They did everything together," Browne notes on one of the funny, touching spreads that ensue; in this particular case, he shows that these BFFs can't be separated even when nature calls. Playing with scale and perspective, continually recalibrating the level of detail (on some closeups, the individual hairs of the gorilla's fur coat are distinct), imbuing his simian hero with a range of emotion worthy of a young Marlon Brando, Browne creates an unpredictable visual vocabulary in sync with the unlikely but enduring affection between Beauty and beast. Ages 3-5. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Preschool, Primary) A gorilla has learned sign language to get whatever he needs -- coffee, a burger, the remote -- but his caretakers are momentarily stumped when he asks for a friend. Like his real-life counterpart Koko, the gorilla is given a kitten, here named Beauty, and it's all fun and games until the gorilla, offended by the depiction of his kind in King Kong, goes into a blood-red rage and destroys the TV. But when the caretakers come to rescue Beauty, she takes the blame, and -- perhaps as swayed by the evidence that animals can lie as by the demonstration of her loyalty and sign-language skills -- the humans let the pair stay together, "happily ever after." It's the kind of subversive fable that Browne specializes in -- warm and fuzzy on the outside, ferocious within, illustrated with large-scale pictures whose impeccable realism give the fantasy the charge of possibility. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* As in Willy and Hugh (1991) and many other animal fantasies, Browne once again tells a picture-book story with exquisitely detailed art that blends magic and realism. Full-page pictures in pencil and watercolor show a gorilla seated in a floral armchair watching TV with his mug of tea and a hamburger. The ape's human keepers have taught him sign language, and when he signs that he is lonely, they give him a small white kitten. He names her Beauty, and the two bond in bliss. He holds her in the palm of his hand and feeds her milk and honey. The cover shows Beauty perched on the gorilla's head, and one delightful spread shows him on the toilet, her using the litter box (They did everything together.). Then, in a fury after seeing a King Kong movie on TV, the gorilla smashes the set. The keepers come to take Beauty away after the outburst, but when Beauty signs that she broke the TV, everyone laughs at her improbable claim, the mood lightens, and the friends live happily ever after. With the beautiful close-up views of each hair on the gorilla's furry body, his gentle eyes and soft hands, and then the sudden uncontrollable anger that all kids fear in themselves and others this is the stuff of Beauty and the Beast, as terrifying as it is tender.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2008 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3-This reworking of the classic tale of a beast transformed by unconditional love depicts the protagonist as a lumbering gorilla and Beauty as a petite cat. A red rose on the title page hints at what's to come. But wait! Alert readers will recognize this relationship, these very poses: here are Hanabi-Ko and All Ball from the real-life story of the sensitive, signing gorilla described by Francine Patterson in Koko's Kitten (Scholastic, 1985). Browne melds fact and fiction into a story that reads simply, but offers layers. Luscious, creamy pages provide contrast for the large, well-spaced font and the dark, furry figure that often bleeds off the page. Watercolor and pencil renderings capture the animal in moments of profound loneliness and extreme anger; he reacts to King Kong by smashing the TV in a page red with rage. Zookeepers fear for Beauty's safety, but her surprising intervention saves the day. Children will chuckle as they view the pair doing everything together, from using the bathroom to swinging from the lamp, like the mythical figure flying too close to the sun. (Bruegel's Fall of Icarus hangs in the background.) Browne's exquisite interpretation of a real-life gorilla is a welcome progression.-Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A lonely gorilla who has been taught sign language tells his keepers that he wants a friend. Not having another gorilla in the zoo, they gave him a kitten named Little Beauty, and most of the book depicts the ecstatic friendship between the tiny feline and the gargantuan gorilla. When the friends view King Kong on television, a movie so darkly at odds with the softhearted simian's nature, he impulsively smashes the set. This act of violence almost leads the keepers to remove Beauty, until the kitten signs that she broke the television. No one renders primates with more faithful detail or surreal humanity than Browne. Here the pictures are made all the more affecting by the ironic juxtapositions of size (great and wee) and stylish gentility (primitive animal set against William Morris wallpapers). These are interrupted only at moments of extreme emotion, when the painstaking detail gives way to hastier line and more emphatic text. Young children may not know the visual King Kong reference, but the rest of the love story will need no explanation. (Picture book. 3-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
