Job Roggeveen

Job, Joris & Marieke, the Dutch animation studio founded by Job Roggeveen, Joris Oprins and Marieke Blaauw, whose A Single Life won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2015, here present a mystery for picture-book readers. When all sorts of things in town - seesaws at the park, traffic lights on the street, a sailboat's main mast, etc. - start turning up destroyed, everyone wonders who's behind the mischief, and why they have sawed through so many objects. When the culprit is revealed as a beaver, the policeman's first thought is to haul him off to the jail, but this solution proves to be only temporary, as the beaver gnaws his way out of his cell. Then a little girl has a good idea...

Originally published in the Netherlands as Wie doet dat toch?, and translated into English for the Montreal-based CrackBoom! Books, Who Did That? A Whodunit for Children is the first children's book from the Job, Joris & Marieke team, who have subsequently also produced De happy camper : Manfreds kampeer- & survivalgids, currently only available in Dutch. The story here is cute enough, although the solution to the "mystery" is almost immediately apparent, given the gnawed state of the damaged objects. The artwork is cartoon-like, which is no surprise, given that its creators are animators, and although it is not precisely to my taste, it will no doubt have appeal for some young audiences. The eventual solution to the problem - a little girl simply asks the troublemaker to stop, and he agrees, not having realized he was causing such trouble - is sweet, if highly unlikely. No doubt the message was meant to be that one should start trouble-shooting with the simplest and least confrontational of steps, but the adult in me couldn't help but feel that politely asking vandals/criminals to stop doing what they are doing is probably not going to work. Given that he had been hauled off to jail, escaped, and continued his rampage, I also had to laugh at the idea that he'd had no idea his behavior was destructive. Then again, since he is a beaver, perhaps the message here is more about peacefully coexisting with wild creatures, who cannot be expected to understand or obey human rules? Whatever the case may be, although there's nothing really wrong with this one, it didn't strike a strongly positive chord with me either, and I'm not sure to whom I would recommend it, save perhaps to fans of this animation studio, or perhaps to picture-book readers who enjoy (very basic) mysteries.… (más)