Bob and Tom

Cazet is no stranger to offbeat friendship stories, as readers of his Minnie and Moo books or his recent Snail and Slug know. In a deadpan, dialogue-driven story that stretches from morning till night, he introduces farm turkeys Bob and Tom, who may lack smarts but are well-matched pals all the same. Time stamps guide readers through the day: there’s a morning rain shower at 6:45 (“It’s wet,” Tom notes. “It’s the water,” Bob replies), the turkeys attempt to acquire “suits that swim” in order to safely enter the pond in the afternoon, and they fret over losing their names later in the day. “Who am I talking to?” worries Bob. “Without a name I can’t see the who in you!” (They eventually pick new names, which happen to be their old ones.) There’s no shortage of physical comedy in Cazet’s scribbly textured, mixed-media images: in one, Bob peers at Sam through a magnifying glass, attempting to discern whether there’s anything inside his head, and a metal detector proves ineffective as they try to find their lost names. What a pair of turkeys. Ages 4–8. (July)