Even Hyenas Don't Like to Be Laughed At

When I think of hyenas, my first association is usually the word "laughing." Films such as The Lion King have only strengthened the connection I make between hyenas and laughter. As I learned in Janell Cannon's Pinduli, it is spotted hyenas that make such a ruckus with their apparent amusement. The book's title character, however, is a striped hyena, and she is not the one doing the laughing...

Pinduli's mother insists that her young daughter is the most beautiful hyena in the world, and for a while, safe in the shelter of her mother's warm fur, Pinduli believes it. But one day she ventures off on her own, and the cruel reactions of several neighboring animals to her appearance cause her to reconsider her mother's opinion. Soon she is plagued by doubts, her self-worth shattered, but in an attempt to hide herself from the world she hits upon a clever plan to get her fellow savanna-dwellers to see the error of their ways.

Cannon has a warm writing style that packages biological and moral lessons into a thoroughly engaging story. Each two-page spread has one full-page illustration in glorious color and one page of text, which usually consists of two or three somewhat short paragraphs. Also included on the pages with text are small line drawings showing Pinduli's mother waiting for her daughter. She has a few adventures of her own, but the young hyena is the focus here, wandering aimlessly with an ever heavier heart.

Pinduli reminds me of A Snoodle's Tale, a Dr. Seuss-inspired VeggieTales video about a young creature whose dreams are dashed when several townsfolk berate him for his size and so-called lack of artistic ability. It takes a trip to a Mysterious Stranger who resides in a cave far above the city to restore some self-confidence. Pindula has no mountaintop sage to comfort her, but she does have her mother, and ultimately she must decide whose opinion is more important to her. Along the way, there's an amusing and useful peek at the ancestry of an insult that shows how one ill-considered unkind word can have far-reaching repercussions.

Cannon's illustrations, done in acrylics and colored pencil, are breathtaking as always. Hyenas aren't quite so reviled as some of the other subjects she has taken on, but once again Cannon presents a creature considered by many to be undesirable and makes it utterly irresistible. Along with the hyena, we get jolly black dogs, a sardonic old lion, cheeky zebras, spooked wildebeests, a hunched vulture, a tiny fox and a bald marabou, among others, all against the stunning backdrop of a deep blue sky and blazing sand blending delicately into one another. After the end of the story, Cannon provides four pages of textbook-style information about various kinds of hyenas and how the three main contentious issues in the book - hair style, stripes and big ears - affect certain members of the animal kingdom.

With such a variety of animals to take in, children needn't have a particular passion for hyenas in order to be drawn into Pindula, but by the time the book is over, I'd be surprised if they don't decide that a hyena is quite the beauteous creature after all.

Warm and Fuzzy Little Yau Shows Cannon's More Fantastical Side

Since reading Janell Cannon's Stellaluna, I have been eager to find other books by this sensitive, lyrical wordsmith and astonishingly talented artist. My last trip to the library rewarded me with Crickwing and Little Yau: A Fuzzhead Tale. The latter seems to be a departure for this woman so interested in showing youngsters the ways of the natural world. Rather than depicting real creatures in their natural environments, she invents a species.

This is actually the second of her books about Fuzzheads, which she describes in her traditional end-of-the-book biological notes as being six-foot-tall white felines, weighing 200 pounds, living for up to 200 years, existing primarily on fruits and vegetables but occasionally on meat and being excessively fond of books. To that end, they are known to visit bookstores and libraries disguised as humans, and they have peacefully resided throughout the world for thousands of years, undetected by their human neighbors.

Little Yau is a young Fuzzhead who has just failed the test determining whether she is ready to join the Wise Ones in the mountains to be trained as a healer. She's feeling pretty depressed when she comes across her good friend Trupp, who has been away. Finding Trupp poisoned, she frantically summons help. Soon the community of Fuzzheads, including the three elders, has gathered, and Little Yau learns that her friend will only recover with the aid of a particular plant known as thumbfoot...

So begins Little Yau's journey to find the plant and heal her friend. She is joined by the elders initially, but after donning human garb they split up, knowing that time is of the essence is Trupp is to be saved. Visually, this book is much the same as the other Cannon books I've read, with full-color, richly detailed illustrations filling one side of the page and black-and-white line drawings augmenting the other.

The writing style is similar but slightly different, with more of a fantasy feel to it. There's much discussion of mixing up herbs and receiving the advice of wise elders, and the story reads not as a morality tale but as a coming-of-age epic. I find the difference intriguing, though in the end I'm not sure I'm quite as engrossed as I was with the books that are more grounded in reality. Still, Cannon's inventiveness is a plus, so while I don't think it's a particularly educational book, it should stir the imaginations of children who are cat lovers or have an inclination toward the fantastical.

The reading level seems just a bit more difficult than Crickwing and certainly more advanced than Stellaluna, and it's a fairly lengthy book so I probably wouldn't recommend it for a child much younger than second grade. But older kids should enjoy this warm and exciting tale, and if they do, they'll be glad to know there's another whole adventure they can turn to when it's over.

Lovable Cockroach Crickwing Teaches a Valuable Lesson About Bullying

Among all the creatures in the animal kingdom, there are many that strike fear into the hearts of humans. Snakes and bats are two of those, and Janell Cannon didn't shy away from those, so after that she turned her attention to a beast not so much feared as reviled. Cockroaches are ancient and incredibly resilient, and they have a way of turning up just where you least want to see them. But in Crickwing, Cannon introduces us to a cockroach that is actually adorable. And while he behaves unpleasantly through a portion of the book, armed with the insight as to why he acts this way, we can't feel too much animosity toward him.

As in Stellaluna, Crickwing begins with a startling encounter between the protagonist and a more dangerous animal - in this case, a frog. The close shave leaves Crickwing crippled, his wing throbbing constantly much like curmudgeonly Dr. House's hated leg. Since popping pain pills isn't a viable option, our multi-legged friend turns to art therapy. Concentrating on his creations gives him a sense of purpose, and the idea is that after he admires the finished product for a while, he will eat it. But that never seems to work out for him because he's such a small fellow, and there's always some bigger animal waiting around to swipe his dinner before he can enjoy it.

I was surprised to see reptiles and mammals in this book; while Cannon does manage to make Crickwing and the leaf-cutter ants he happens upon cute enough, the richly colored frog, lizard, monkey and ocelot are gorgeous. I especially like the illustration in which Crickwing cowers while a pair of wide ocelot eyes peer in at him through a crack. With so many brutes out to get him, one can understand why he might be tempted to assert that same sort of authority over the tiny ants he meets. But will bullying others really bring him true satisfaction, especially when a greater threat looms before them all?

This book came out in 2000, so I wonder if it was influenced by A Bug's Life; I see definite echoes of that movie in the storyline of the peaceful leaf-cutters being forced to present an offering to the ferocious army ants and in the plan that is devised to defeat them. Nonetheless, I found Crickwing to be both charming and refreshing, a beautifully written story of cooperation with astounding illustrations to match. While the full-color, full-page paintings are the most engrossing of the pictures, the tiny ink drawings the complement the text are also noteworthy, and the wording is carefully crafted.

I'd suggest this for a slightly older audience than Stellaluna, whose gentle themes of friendship and motherly love make for grand bedtime reading. Crickwing is longer and more action-oriented. Four pages of biological notes on cockroaches and ants follow the story, concluding this book of supreme moral, artistic and educational value.

Stellaluna Explores the Beautiful Mystery of Friendship

Ever since the day when I visited my great-aunt's house as a toddler and witnessed a bat frantically flapping from a little-used room when she opened the door, I've had a fascination for the maligned nocturnal creatures. So I couldn't help but be drawn to Janell Cannon's celebrated Stellaluna, which tells of a little fruit bat who loses her way after she and her mother are attacked by an owl and ends up in the care of a bird, who insists that she behave like the rest of her children, denying her innate batty ways.

Because bats tend to rank with spiders, snakes and other creepy-crawlies as creatures that generally don't receive much public approval, it may seem a strange choice to write a story about one. But Cannon is drawn to these misunderstood mammals, and her vibrant illustrations actually manage to make Stellaluna even more lovable-looking than the birds she comes to think of as siblings. We see her wings as the graceful apparatus they are, and we gulp along with her when she cowers under the mother bird's glare, clinging to the nest by her thumbs and promising not to teach her nest mates any more bad habits.

Every page of text features a tiny pen-and-ink drawing of a bat going out into the world and meeting various other creatures. I have my suspicions as to the identity of this bat but will keep them to myself since they reveal a key plot point if I am correct. The main illustrations, however, are in full glorious color, detailed and expressive with pale brown bats and birds standing out against deep blue skies.

The story turns out to be one of tolerance, of learning that it's okay to be different, that you are the way you are for a reason. It's very much an Ugly Duckling story except that while the mother bird is harsh toward Stellaluna, her pseudo-siblings are kind, even wanting to emulate their new friend's strange habits. The story is told in fairly simple but lyrical prose ideal for a bedtime read-aloud; school-age children won't find too many troublesome words to trip over, and the lesson on bat biology in the back enhances the book's educational value.

"How can we be so different and feel so much alike?" one of the birds wonders late in the book. "I think this is quite a mystery," another chirps. It's no mystery why children have flocked to this gentle story despite the fact that bats are not generally seen as residents of the realm of cute and cuddly. Cannon helps us to see that all creatures are beautiful. If children can be taught to respect the differences of those with feathers, fur and wings, can a more understanding approach to their fellow humans be far behind?