HOW TO CATCH A GROUNDHOG
After two score and counting How To Catch books, this latest addition suggests that there’s nothing left to capture. The verses are feeble (“But I’m chilled to my bones deep inside / I feel the wind across my backside”), while the illustrations are mundane. On one page, a child crouches in a drift eating “stick cheese” (apparently because it rhymes with “trees”). Another catches a football thrown by a friend but falls across a stone slab, breaking it in two. Far below, the anthropomorphic groundhog’s breakfast is disturbed; his cup, saucer, creamer, and sugar bowl are jostled. “Tomorrow is his big holiday,” the children note. “Will a shadow fall outside the den? / We need him to answer this riddle: / we know winter ends but not when.” Ultimately, though the intrepid hunters set a series of traps, they’re disappointed to catch only a rabbit. The groundhog, it turns out, is hibernating in an elaborate wrought iron bed. On the very next page, the mayor holds up the beast. How was he caught, then? We don’t know. What was his verdict on winter’s duration? We don’t know. Will the series ever stop? We can only hope. Human characters are diverse.
