Jon Klassen

Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers

Published: September 2021

Genres: Children’s Fiction

Pages: 160

“One minute everything is dark, and you are sure the worst possible end is coming. And then – suddenly! – a spot of blue sky.”

– Amy Timberlake, Skunk and Badger #2

The desultory duo from North Twist return with their staple sense of comedy and camaraderie, this time on a rock-finding expedition. Badger, the austere geologist, is conducting important rock work when Skunk, the goading happy-go-lucky chef, notices a rock missing from his Wall of Rocks: agate. Badger’s cousin, Fisher, a treasure dealer, purloined the rock that started Badger’s sedimentary hobby and career. In Egg Marks the Spot, Skunk and Badger seek to complete the collection before enjoying the Sunday New Yak Times Book Review over breakfast. With familiar and new faces, extended backstories, and a lesson or two met with mystery, the series continues to make strides for all ages.

A year later and this sequel has not dulled the original’s rustic panache. It maintains the hyperbolic world of the animal kingdom Amy Timberlake and Jon Klassen have cleverly depicted. Throughout this tale, themes of greed and glory take precedent in subtle and solemn ways. Skunk overprepares, overpacks, and overwhelms Badger with his towering backpack in slapstick fashion. At one point, Badger worries so much that he forgoes nourishment from one of Skunk’s fantastic meals. Moments where actions speak louder than words and where words are measured twice and cut deeply are laudable. The only exception to this is perhaps in the exposition. It felt Skunk and Badger’s time in the woods was short-lived, despite the foretold danger of bears and the secrecy behind the chicken’s Quantum Leap powers, which has a bittersweet payoff. The pacing is convenient and simple, yet curious and expectant, but never cheap or forced. More unexpected turns as well as more background into Skunk’s personal history would have been welcome leading up to a promising albeit jam-packed ending.

Final Rating:

Green Rose

Author: Amy Timberlake

Illustrator: Jon Klassen

Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers

Published: September 2020

Genres: Children’s Fiction

Pages: 136

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“Not everyone wants a skunk.”

– Amy Timberlake, Skunk and Badger #1

Animals paint an unlikely, but possible, analogy for humans in countless fables. Personified, they hold up a mirror to the reader, showing our imperfect nature. The animal kingdom, of course, is fraught with unforgiving tooth-and-claw indelicacies. Sometimes, Skunk and Badger teaches us, nature can be forgiving. Badger is a rock scientist and excavator who lives in his Aunt Lula’s brownstone. His work is solitary and all Badger requires is silent execution. A knock on the door interrupts his study, from rose-colored Skunk who is in need of a home and is offered room and board at the brownstone from Aunt Lula. Playful misunderstandings, magical hard science, and whimsical madness ensue for the curious roommates in the picturesque home ground of North Twist.

The characterization and onomatopoeic burbling of instincts are thoughtful and familiar. Badger and Skunk use the brownstone out of necessity, but the first’s austerity contradicts the latter’s audacity. The subtle ironies too (Skunk does not clean, but recycles) are welcome, unexpected spins on the all-work and all-play duo’s dynamic before they balance out. Amy Timberlake with Jon Klassen share a similar synergy comparable to Roald Dahl with Quentin Blake: stark, solemn, and remarkably silly. A poignant and palatable sense of change as good, or that anyone can change, and the contagions of cynicism, criticism, conformity, and complacency, Skunk and Badger paves the way for doing the right thing and for meaningful and respectable friendships, even with ourselves.

Final Rating: