The Race

K-Gr 3—Six bipedal caribou arrive at the starting line for a race. These competitors will do anything to win, from throwing banana peels to hitching a ride; whoever is in first place is viewed with obvious malice. In an existential twist, some runners decide to quit: "They wonder why they started running like that in the first place. So they decide to settle down and enjoy life. The others don't give it much thought. They keep playing tricks on each other…" This book uses the same writing style as Manceau's Windblown (Owlkids, 2013), with short sentences and little background information, but feels more abrupt and jarring. The cut-paper collage artwork is very fine, using a controlled palette of black, orange, and green with pops of blue. The overall effect of the well-composed art is spare, but there are lots of details worth noticing. The caribou "guys" are very appealing, and show quite a range of emotion through slight changes in their eyes and antlers. The final spread shows the one who quit happily relaxing in his hammock and raises the question of whether he truly lost by not racing to cross the finish line first. This is definitely not a lesson in sportsmanship, and the line it treads between funny and spiteful is very narrow indeed. Fans of the gentle Windblown will likely be disappointed by this harsh look at competitive drive.—Anna Haase Krueger, Ramsey County Library, MN