I Wish I Were a...

A zoo with a distinctly bureaucratic atmosphere is the setting for this story first published in Germany. Each animal sits idly in its enclosure, while the bucktoothed meerkat narrator stands guard over his troop, his gaze sweeping back and forth: “left... straight... right... straight.” This routine lets him look repeatedly at three other animals: “I see the bear... the chimpanzee... the lion... the chimpanzee.” With a dynamic combination of bright colors and scribbled lines, Jeschke paints portraits of animals whose expressions—the meerkat anxious, the bear lunkheaded, the chimpanzee vacant, the lion jaded—provide the book’s humor. The meerkat envies them (“I wish I were a lion. Then everyone would be afraid of me!”), but when he calls his troop underground and they respond instantly, the other animals envy him right back: “What a guy! the chimpanzee thinks. I wish I were a meerkat. Then I would be a good lookout.” While it’s a meditation on the general state of things rather than an action story, the illustrations make the shifting emotions plain and deliver the grass-is-greener message without pompousness or sentimentality. Ages 2–5. (Sept.)