"Slowly, Slowly, Slowly," said the Sloth, by Eric Carle (our review)

This is another book to which we keep returning on our library visits. I think the first time we read it was around two years ago when Calvin was about a year and a half and was fascinated by the variety of animals.

Here's what he has to say about the book now:

"it's about a sloth who is slowly slowly. Every animal asked him 'why are you so quiet?' 'why are you so lazy?' and 'why are you so boring?' and at the end the jaguar says 'why are you so lazy?' and he thinks for a very long time and when you turn the page [the jaguar's] gone and the monkey thinks that the sloth is talking to him when he answers the jaguar's question slowly, slowly."

Calvin likes this book because he likes the sloth. The sloth is his favorite character, the jaguar is his favorite supporting character, and his favorite part of the book is when the jaguar asks the sloth "why are you so lazy?"

As for me, I'm actually not an Eric Carle fan. I do not like the "What Do You See?" books, or most of his other learning books, but in his rather vast library I can find a handful of titles that I don't mind reading, and this is one of them. I even like the pictures in this one, which amount to a parade of South American rainforest animals, and the use of vocabulary with a hint of comedic timing adds just the right amount of humor. That's why it has become a regular visitor in our house.