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A MILLION STARS. This picture book is HILARIOUS and a new favorite. I am actually shook by how much I adore this tale. I picked it up in an English bookshop in Amsterdam whilst I was looking for cute children's books for my nephew... no one's surprised that I also ended up with a book for myself, right?

I mean, I don't usually read picture books anymore (lmao) but even whilst flipping through this one in the store I knew that I had to make it mine. The art is beautiful, albeit a bit of an acquired taste. It's not the usual bright and colorful tones that you see in most picture books, the colors in this one are subdued. Jon Klassen chose very similar frames for his illustrations—they often mirror each other with only one small detail being different (e.g. the big fish's eyes being closed and then open in the next picture), which means that kids need to be very attentive while reading and looking in order to understand the humor in this story.

All in all, I am not even sure if that humor will be comprehensible for smaller children. It's not as on the nose as you might expect. As an adult, I found it hilarious though. The text (basically the confident taunts of a little fish who stole the big fish's tiny hat) was such a striking juxtaposition to the images, it was hilarious to see the plan of the little fish go south real quick.

The ending (did he or did he not? muahahaha) will probably provide interesting discussion when reading it to children, I'd be very curious to see how small kids would interpret it.

Personally, I am just delighted that I found this little gem in the oddest of all places, and that I can now call it mine. I read through the other two books in the series online (yes, I've read the shitty PDF versions just to see if they're worth the buy) but I have to say that I didn't find them nearly as funny and they didn't do much for me... so I'll just stick to my fish, no need for bears of turtles in this house!