Tops & Bottoms

Caldecott Honor winner by writer and illustrator Janet Stevens where the painted colors blend seamlessly into each other, and the drawings of the characters are comical at times. The story is of a hare and his family that are struggling because of a best that he made against a tortoise. This origin story should be familiar to a lot of reader. The story continues with the family deciding on a plan to get back his land. The plan involves a bear down the road who had inherited all his wealth and sleeps all day. As the bear is sleeping, the hare wakes the bear up with a plan to be business partners that leads to the hare constantly swindling the bear of his profits. The bear learns his lesson to not sleep all the time and take responsibility while the hare makes back enough money to buy his land back. It’s not a traditional folktale, but it gives readers nostalgic feeling that they should enjoy.

Stevens, J. (1995). Tops & Bottoms. Harcourt Brace.