Ouch!

A picture book featuring hedgehogs that is lower on my list of favorites is Ouch! by Ragnhild Scammell, illustrated by Michael Terry. It has cutesy cartoonish illustrations. The main character, Hedgehog, and the goat who solves the problem in the end are pretty charming, but their faces don't convey much expression. Also, the landscape is rather green & fruitful for a time when a hedgehog is going to sleep for the winter. The text and the illustrations match, but the pics don't add any depth or nuance to what's going on in the plainly told story.

The plot is based on the old folk idea that European hedgehogs are able to collect fruit and carry it away impaled on their quills. In Ouch!, an apple falls onto & sticks to little Hedgehog. She wishes to get into her nest to hibernate, but now she can't because she won't fit. Other animals offer advice, but when she tries to scrape the apple off, she always ends up with something more stuck in her quills. It's not particularly believeable, even for a fanciful picture book. The best part is when Hedgehog already has stuff all over her quills (Nuts? Really, you think nuts would stick?) and a small piece of blue paper flies through the air. Little Hedgie runs around to avoid it, but it floats right onto her back & sticks! Some days everything just gets all up in your quills...

An interesting facet of this text is the 26 page length. Most picture books are standard at 32 pages. The original UK publisher, Little Tiger Press, added in black & white activity pages in between the full color spreads. Good Books, the US publisher, has left these out.

An Amazon search shows that Scholastic has picked this text up & published an audiotape along with it, changing the title to Apple Trouble. I wonder why the title change?

The Happy Hedgehog Band

Right, let's combine hogs and children's literature. A sweet, sweet picture book entitled The Happy Hedgehog Band (1991 in UK; 1992 in US) is one of my favorite pic books featuring hedgies as main characters. By Martin Waddell of Little Bear & Farmer Duck fame, and illustrated by Jill Barton. Harry the hedgehog makes himself a drum, tum-tum-te-tum. When he plays, deep in the heart of Dickon Wood, Helen the hedgehog hears him, wants to join, and so makes a drum and diddle-diddle-dum. Helen wears cherries in her quills, and a few hang down like earrings to really bring the cute. Two other hedgies join, and their names do not begin with H, thank God. So, the happy hedgehog band plays on, Tum-tum-te-tum, diddle-diddle-dum, ratta-tat-tat, BOOM!

Other animals arrive: a variety of them, some quite large, with surprised looks on their faces, and yell, "STOP!" Here is also the perfect place to stop a read aloud, or a child or group of children reading on her/his/their own, to predict what will happen next. Were these human characters, the hogs would surely be too loud, and that's a possibility. It's definitely worth some while to discuss what could happen at this turning point.

Oh, ok, I'll spill. The other animals want to drum too! But, apparently, hedgehogs are the only animals who know how to make drums. Enterprising Harry suggests sounds each animal can contribute: the pheasant can hum, the owl hoot, the mole clap, the bee buzz, and on & on. Then everyone plays together, and "the dog who was lost in the woods just danced." On the last two double page spreads, the sound effect for each animal is incorporated into the illustrations for some terrific phonological awareness fun! I especially like the spider saying a quiet weee as she swings on her web.

Unfortunately, this text is out of print. But it is just another example of the excellent children's literature that Candlewick Press continues to offer us.