More Dung! A Beetle Tale

South Africa–born animator and director Weber makes a visually comic picture book debut with this fable about the power of appreciation—and poo. A grinning, bright-eyed chap, the title’s dung beetle protagonist seems the very definition of gratitude-practicing. Thanking the sun for its warm rays and stretching out four arms, he awaits “whatever he might receive” near the river, and gets a generous “SPLAT!” of elephant dung. He packs some into a ball to push home (and snack on), orients himself by the sun and the night sky, and protects the small orb from challengers. But when an enigmatic leopard tells the contented beetle of the heaps of dung to be had at a nearby cattle farm, the beetle can’t resist. Pencil and digital spreads, heretofore depicting a verdant, sunlit landscape, now turn monochromatic and dreary as the insect voraciously builds a dung empire inside the harshly lit cattle barn. It takes getting buried in an avalanche of the stuff to bring him to his senses and send him back home. The moral—knowing when enough truly is enough—underscores the folly of greed while playfully reassuring that one mistake doesn’t have to last a lifetime. Ages 3–5. Agent: Adriann Ranta Zurhellen, Folio Literary. (May)