[.ca] The Animals and the Ark (ISBN 0689830955)

Wonderfully colorful and inventive!:
My three year old loves this book--a true find at our last bookstore outing. The pictures are colorful and fun, and the rhyme is never forced. The editors' reviews above immediately siezed on the fact that God is not mentioned in this storybook, yet that's not something that I even noticed when I first read it. I actually liked that this biblical story was told so whimsically, making it fun for my children to learn about our Christian history. Noah and his sons build this great ark, and Noah looks for a place to park. They gather the animals, load them up, and then it begins to pour, pour, and pour some more. The animals get bored on the boat and get annoyed with each other and their cramped space. Kuskin's poetry comes fast and furious as the rain falls and tension builds on the ark, then suddenly the sun breaks through (and the animals go home). I think the book is fun and educational. My daughter LOVES the bright, watercolored, rumply pictures and makes up her own prose as each of the animals takes the ramp into the ark. I recommend it to anyone with small children. It's captivating!