A Tiger Like Me by Michael Engler
Illust. Joëlle Tourlonias Translated Laura Watkinson
Amazon Crossing Kids, 2019. Hardcover Picture Book, 32 pp.
Joëlle Tourlonias’ illustrations are worthwhile enough to hunt down a copy of this German Picture Book in translation.* Her tiger-costumed boy and his antics in and out of the house are stunning. They are feast while the reader takes on the voice of the little boy turned tiger as he takes us through his day, showing and telling us the different ways he is as a tiger. You suspect that he is also describing who he is as a human child, too.
He is fierce and funny and also vulnerable. Plenty of reader/listeners will identify with him, I mean, the tiger.
It’s nice to have a bit of a longer story, too. And it’s one you could skip a page or two if pressed for time at the end of the day. The narrator is imaginative and invites a playfulness and a tenderness that is irresistible. He also has a great vocabulary.
*(The Calvin & Hobbes vibe was a definite selling point).
Noted: the family has a craft time. That is pretty cool.
