The Fastest Tortoise in Town

Anyone who has optimistically signed up for a fun run will see themselves in friendly faced Barbara Hendricks, the "regular leopard tortoise" who narrates this sweetly rendered variation on Aesop's "The Tortoise and the Hare." Barbara is a bundle of nerves ahead of the big day, but she has a champion, too--"my owner and best friend, Lorraine," a bespectacled child portrayed with brown skin--who believes in her unconditionally. Lorraine leads Barbara through a crash-training regimen (they're overtaken by "an absentminded worm" and a newly walking toddler). And on game day, the child encourages the tortoise to "just run your own race." Though Barbara spies a snail, a slow loris, and a sloth ("the fastest animals I've ever seen!") at the starting line, her strategy of putting one foot in front of the other, again and again, pays off. Calvert (Lots of Frogs) creates a lovable everytortoise via Barbara's entertaining account, nodding to the original fable with the appearance of a new, long-eared challenger at book's end. In moving mixed-media images of expressive figures and bustling townsfolk portrayed with various skin tones, Obuhanych (This Little Kitty) delivers visual laughs and creates a tortoise to root for. Ages 3-7. (Apr.)