Panthera Tigris

Mansplaining turns deadly in this parable by a French team about an older white scholar whose “head was stuffed with all manner of learned things.” A densely hatched line drawing shows his stately dome in cross section, brain exposed, constituent parts labeled: “speed reading zone,” “knowledge repository.” Realizing that he knows nothing about tigers, he sets out to study them in India, then decides to try to meet one. A local hunter (“awestruck” and “rather simple”) guides him through the jungle as the scholar pontificates: “Did you know that it belongs to the order Carnivora, the family Felidae?” The hunter tries to share a crucial piece of information about the species, but the one piece of intellectual equipment the scholar lacks is the ability to listen. In an able translation by Lal and Ardizzone, Alzial captures the scholar’s hectoring, 19th-century colonial tone, while Rajcak’s illustrations alternate between black-and-white tiger diagrams (claws, body language) and brightly colored drawings of what happens when the scholar meets the glowing orange tiger face-to-face. A springboard for a discussion about kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing. Ages 5–9. [em](Oct.) [/em]