It was nearly two decades ago that art professor Roy Gerrard abandoned academia to launch a new career in children's picture books. Gerrard coopted the author's role for his next work, The Favershams , and the driving music-hall style rhymes introduced by his wife grew in complexity. Against towering backdrops and flats of intricate and lush detail, large chunks of scenery seem to have been economically recycled among the productions. And there's always a carpet of daisies at hand to meet more pastoral demands. Each role is rigidly defined, with no ambiguity over good guys and bad guys, no subtleties of character motivation.
Readers can breathe easy, certain of who to jeer and who to cheer.
The setting may vary from the banks of the Nile to the Great Plains, but the story will hinge on good vs. evil. In a Gerrard world right inevitably prevails through virtue, cleverness, and courage, and villains are put in their places with a few smart smacks and are kept on the straight and narrow with sagacious and cunningly rhymed advice. Only supply the tune, and the phrasing could leap from the pages of a Sir William Gilbert libretto. Tongue planted firmly in cheek, Gerrard dashes off a patter droll enough to captivate a readership well beyond the customary picture book years. But recognizable stereotype is the stuff of parody, and readers who can't giggle at much.