Mr. Tiger Goes Wild (Peter Brown. Little, Brown and Company, 2013)

Doesn’t everyone want to go a little wild sometimes? Reading this book may give you a niggling to let go of socially acceptable norms and let a little bit of your silly side escape. Mr. Tiger has a good reason to need a release – he lives in a city during Victorian times, which is filled with wild animals that are expected to be perfectly proper.  Mr. Tiger starts to show his wild side first by doing something fairly conceivable – he goes from bipedal movement down to all fours.  Consecutive two-page spreads depict this brilliantly.  Mr. Tiger can’t stop there – what he does next has made me fall hard for this picture book.  Ready?  He skinny dips in the city fountain! The fountain illustration is followed by another full spread of Mr. Tiger poised (on all fours again) and ready to embrace his wildness and all of its possibilities. Peter Brown is a fantastically talented author-illustrator with a number of publishing credits to his name; my second favourite of his picture books is is My Teacher is a Monster (Little, Brown and Company, 2014).