Tails Chasing Tails

Everyone loves a good chase, and Porter uses one to let readers guess the identity of each animal in the chain based on their tail. The first animal, an elephant with green almond-shaped eyes and a swoopy trunk, is pursuing “a black-and-orange-striped tail.” The tiger to whom that tail belongs, meanwhile, is running after a “short, brown tail” on the subsequent spread. The texture of the pinewood on which Porter paints bleeds through the images, and his animals—while entirely friendly and appealing—also have a static, almost totemic quality, as though the chase were part of a larger folktale. Up to age 4. (Apr.)