Hedgehog Needs a Hug
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Everyone needs hugs, even if they're prickly.
When Hedgehog wakes up feeling down in the snout and droopy in the prickles, he knows a hug will make him feel much better. But none of his animal friends are eager to wrap their arms around Hedgehog's prickles, and he's too smart to fall for Fox's sly offer.
Then Hedgehog gets a surprise: Another animal in the forest is feeling exactly the same way.
Luckily, both are kind and brave enough for the perfect hug.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her debut solo picture book, Betton (illustrator of Twilight Chant) gives the long-lamented lot of the lonely, risky-to-embrace hedgehog a gentle and winsome recast. Featuring expressive animal images that pop from white backdrops and are at once softly focused and realistic, her mixed-media art lays bare Hedgehog's dismay after he wakes up feeling "down in the snout and droopy in the prickles" and none of his friends is willing to give him a hug. With alarmed faces, they sputter impromptu excuses; Raccoon's insistence that he has "the most frightful garbage breath you don't want to come near me!" elicits an especially heartrending response from Hedgehog: "I don't mind garbage breath." Hedgehog's quills come in useful when drooling Fox comes "slide-slinking over" to offer the forlorn fellow a hug and a kiss but instead snatches him up in his mouth before spitting out his painfully spikey snack. In a sweet conclusion that amplifies the story's directive to look beyond appearances and eschew stereotypes, Hedgehog finds his hug, and unconditional friendship, after encountering a sobbing skunk who's likewise feeling unhuggable. Ages 4 8.
