Dave Eggers, best known for his adult fiction, has previously written for kids, notably This Bridge Will Not Be Gray and Her Right Foot, but this is his first book for the pre-verbal crowd. Most of the Better Natural Things in the World is like a Richard Scarry word book for children of the Earth Day generation.
Each of 23 natural-world ID words--"Steppe," "Chaparral," "Foothills" and so on--sits on a spread; collectively, they're one vast unspooling landscape across which a tiger, toting a chair via a pink rope, makes its way. Dramatic moments arise as the tiger faces the untrammeled earth's challenges: there's the fjord above which the tiger clings to the end of the rope, the chair dangling perilously below. There are dunes across which the tiger plods, bent forward to counter the wind's resistance. The significance of the chair is finally explained at book's end: the adventurer arrives at a taiga (a what? Fear not: there's a back-of-book glossary) where there are three chairs, each occupied by a smiling tiger, around a table set for four.
For her picture book debut, Angel Chang supplies digitally tweaked mixed-media illustrations that have a hand-painted look. A gatefold devoted to "Vista" is slathered with fat strokes of purple, orange and gold conjuring sky; before it, the tiger is for once standing still, paralyzed with wonder. Readers of Most of the Better Natural Things in the World may adopt the same appreciative pose. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author