Somehow this book sneaked into my collection without being catalogued. And I just found it by accident when going to review it. As with most of Ingpen's books, I bought it for the illustrations....and somewhere I have some of these illustrations in a compendium of Ingpen's works. (Actually, I just went and checked and it's not the same book ...that is called the idle bear and was written for their first grandchild in 1986. But same Bear). I'm intrigued about the technique used. It looks like coloured pencil.....with an overlay of graphite pencil but maybe there is some crayon there as well ....hard to tell. But it doesn't seem to be watercolour. Anyway, as always, lovely illustrations. Not sure about the story. Kind of ok but didn't really grab me. I wonder how it is for children?
Loved his collection of owls. Now that I think about it, I too have owls from Mexico, Indonesia, and, (I think, Spain)...though all have been packed away for ages. I'm a bit divided over this rating. Five stars for the illustrations and two for the story. But illustrations wins out; so 5 stars. ( )