In Jan Brett's jolly spin on a beloved Russian folk tale, Badger Girl spots something very strange indeed in the garden: "the biggest turnip she had ever seen."
Badger Girl tries to pull up the giant turnip, but it doesn't move an inch. Strong-armed Badger Boy offers to help her tug, to no avail. "Watch and learn," says Mother Badger, but her "twist and snap" technique doesn't work this time. Father Badger is pretty confident, too... at first. "Pull, pull, pull! The turnip didn't budge." A "cocky little rooster" tries to pull the turnip top with his beak and, to everyone's shock, the turnip shoots out of the ground. "'Time for turnip pancakes browned in butter for all,' Mother Badger sang out...." In this version of the folk tale, it's not about the power of teamwork, or even how the "weakest link" is crucial for everyone to succeed. The punch line here is, at the very moment Rooster tugs on the turnip top, a mother bear in her turnip-invaded subterranean den kicks the giant tuber up and out of the ground. Still, Rooster gets all the credit, is praised as a hero and finds a happy new home with the badgers.
Brett dresses all her animals in brightly colored, traditional Russian clothes, and in her decorative trademark style, adorns her watercolor and gouache artwork with wordless, foreshadowing stories-within-stories. Intricate, folk-art borders surround the story's main action with flowers, beehives, hedgehogs and geometric patterns.
At its root, The Turnip is a jaunty ode to happenstance. --Karin Snelson, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness