The Schoolyard Raccoon by Shana Hollowell
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.), Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by AstilbeIn a forest behind an elementary school lives a mischievous raccoon. Every night, after the teachers and students go home, he searches for items that were left behind at school in hopes to bring something special home. A cute story that is set in rhyme and has an underlining message about not giving up.
What happens to a school when all of the students, teachers, and staff members in them go home for the night?
The world looks different after dark, even in familiar places. Some of my favorite scenes were the ones that showed what might happen when the moon is shining brightly over a playground and all of the children who played there hours ago are now safely home and in bed. They were such gentle and playful takes on the subject, and I would have happily kept reading about this topic for dozens of pages to come.
It would have been helpful to have a better explanation for why Victor the raccoon explored the schoolyard every night. The one that was shared didn’t quite make sense to me due to how much it changed the themes of this picture book. The first half and the second half were both interesting, but they never quite meshed together for me as a reader. It was almost like reading two different stories. While I liked both of them, I needed a better explanation of how they were meant to fit together.
With that being said, I did enjoy the humor of the last few scenes. They played around with the reader’s assumptions of what a raccoon would probably be looking for on a playground after dark and kept me interested as I finished that final scene. It wasn’t something I was expecting to find, but it definitely did amuse me.
The Schoolyard Raccoon made me smile.
Speak Your Mind