Sam with Ants in His Pants

Just before nap time one afternoon, Sam bounces around his Black-presenting family’s kitchen before being sent to bed. Shutting his bedroom door tight, Sam opens African Wildlife, his favorite book. But like the famous protagonist of Where the Wild Things Are, Sam finds his read even more boisterous than his mood. When out of the pages spring a whole menagerie of savanna inhabitants, Reynolds gives each one a crowd-pleasing sound effect: a troop of baboons who “smacked their lips and narrowed their eyes and kept their ears back” says “Hoo! Hoo!” As fantasies go, the events are a mixed blessing. Sam gets to dance with a leap of leopards, but the crash of rhinos slobber on his sneakers; in one comically choreographed ink and watercolor image by Kordesh, Sam’s head barely emerges from what looks like an ongoing stampede. The animals finally clear the room when they hear Sam’s growling tummy, and the sleepy but unapologetic boy heads downstairs and promptly falls asleep at the dinner table, clutching an armful of animal stuffies. Wild animal aficionados should find enough to keep them purring in this double debut about a wild adventure come home. Ages 4–8. (June)