The fearsome, frightening, ferocious box by Frances Watts and David Legge

ABC Books, 2013. ISBN 9780733328916.
(Age: 4+) Warmly recommended. Picture book. Humour. Poetry. A box falls from a truck and is left on the roadside, where a variety of animals comes and inspects the box, saying that they would look inside. But as each animal comes by, bragging that they will not be frightened, they are. First a monkey looks inside and hears the thing inside moan and tell a little tale of its life. The following double page shows the area in which it lives, and the reader is invited to search for the six things hidden on the two pages. Then a crocodile happens along and he hears the thing inside groan with a similar poem over the page inviting the reader to find the six things hidden this time in an arctic landscape. And on it goes, each animal being scared off by the thing inside and the reader invited to find six things in a different environment, until finally the lid of the box is lifted.
A fun involving story with things for the reader to do on each page will entertain those who pick up the book. Legge has successfully shown each animal in distress as it peers inside and the environments shown with their hidden animals will entice younger readers to be involved.
Fran Knight