BADEL, Ronan The Lazy Friend Gecko Press, 2014 unpaged NZ$24.99 pbk ISBN 9781927271414 SCIS 1650502
If young children don’t know what a sloth is, let alone to be slothful then this wordless book may well help! The opening page depicts stasis as three animals (snake, frog and bird) sit atop a tree and enjoy a game of cards. Sloth meanwhile is hanging from a branch, asleep. Then chaos begins on the next page when the howling wind comes, the tree that snake is entwined around collapses, and the animals are thrown all over the place. Sloth, of course, is asleep. Along comes an arborist who cuts the tree that sloth is attached to and the animals recognise the need to rescue it. And so begins a series of events that resolves the situation. Sloth, of course, is slothful and misses out on all the fun. But the ending has a little surprise! Can slothfulness be catching? Recommended.
reviewed by John McKenzie