meh

I think maybe this book was just an excuse for the author to make a bunch of fruit puns, because they comprise the majority of the text.

It's one of those books that I'm not quite sure what to make of. It's an interesting story; I just don't really see what they're trying to say. I feel like some readers might think that it's glorifying con artists.

It's not bad. It's got a good message, but it doesn't really go anywhere with it. It could have gone so much farther, and it didn't.

I feel like this book is supposed to be metaphorical for something, but I don't get what. Maybe adoption? At first it comes across as maybe being like LGBTQ, but it doesn't go in the right direction for that.

Are all tigers prideful? Are they supposed to be that way? Is that what this story is saying, that tigers are all prideful? Was the tiger that attached the mouse/dog prideful? What does that even imply? Or is it saying that you shouldn't be proud of being powerful if you didn't earn your power?

"I don't have to tell you how these old friends felt at meeting again in this desperate situation." Okay, technically, Mr. Steig, you don't. But you also didn't have to write this book. You're a writer, for Pete's sake. Write.

Alfie thinks that the party he arrives at, Nia's eighth birthday party, is the same day as he left, a year before. Maybe he's just really stupid.

This is like the "Baby Shark" of previous generations. Maybe it's cute once, but it will not get out of your head.

Just like its predecessor in the series, this book has no plot, and is a series of questions to a series of animals, phrased in exactly the same way, and is highly repetitive. I guess this one is for the parents who have burned out on "Brown Bear" and will be satisfied with a slight variation for a while.

There's no realistic usage of mathematics in this. There's no engineering or practical application of anything. It feels like the author had an ending in mind, maybe just the title of the book, and wanted to write something based on Euler characteristics, so she had to make some kind of weird, contrived situation for them to derive Euler characteristics on their own. Everything they do is just super lucky. I don't know who's going to enjoy this book. People who are really gung-ho about math, I guess.