The Pigeon Needs a Bath!

The Pigeon is back, and he needs a bath. He disagrees--"I took one last month!"--and he's not giving in without a fight. The melodramatic Pigeon cycles through a range of reactions to the situation: rationalization, denial ("What smell?"), and, finally, grudging acquiescence. Crisply designed pages put the focus on the expressively drawn main character and the speech-bubble text.

With deadpan humor (“I feel clean,” Pigeon protests. “Maybe YOU need a bath.”), Mo Willems lays bare kids’ strategies for attempting to get what they want . . . or wriggle out of what they don’t. Readers may recall their own bath-time battles as Pigeon thinks up increasingly ludicrous excuses—“Y’know, in some places it is impolite to bathe”—to avoid getting in the tub. Pigeon’s hilarious conversion to the path of cleanliness is sure to make followers of even the most reluctant bathers. Through expert use of small details, such as motion lines and expressive body language, Willems imbues Pigeon with a full range of emotions. Fans of the series will appreciate the author’s nod to the duckling character from previous books—a rubber duck sits in a corner of the bathtub, and a tongue-in-cheek drawing on the back endpaper shows it swapping places with Pigeon. In an especially memorable full-spread sequence of brightly colored panels, Pigeon stalls for time complaining about the bath’s temperature, depth, and toy-to-water ratio (“Not enough toys,” he says one second, only to turn around and say “Too many toys,” the next).

The star of seven previous picture books, beginning with Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (rev. 7/03), the Pigeon needs little introduction...but he does need a bath. He feels differently -- "I took one last month!" -- and, true to form, he's not giving in without a fight. Willems lets the Pigeon plead his case to young listeners, who are probably familiar with the I'm-not-taking-a-bath routine but here will take pleasure in being on the other side. The melodramatic Pigeon cycles through a range of reactions to the situation: rationalization, accusation ("When was the last time YOU had a bath?!"), denial ("What smell?"), and, finally, grudging acquiescence ("If it means soooooooooooooo much to you..."). The crisply designed pages put the focus on the expressively drawn main character and the speech bubble text. The bubbles themselves help convey tone: rounded shapes signal less intense discourse, and sharp, jagged edges make clear the intensity is spiking. When the Pigeon finally concedes defeat, it takes a double-page, twenty-nine-panel progression of excuses -- "The water is too hot. Too cold. Too lukewarm. Too hot. Too wet!" -- to get him into the bath. The final two spreads will resonate with parents who've had to cajole their own dirty birds into the tub, only to have to expend the same energy getting them back out. For kids, though, it's just good, clean fun. kitty flynn