Evil Weasel

Small children love a thoroughly bad character and Evil Weasel is a rich and powerful show-off, a bully and a sneak who plays mean tricks on everyone. But when no one comes to his party, Weasel feels let down: after all it ‘isn’t much fun when there’s no one to impress’. Rabbit, Rat, Hedgehog and Shrew let him know what a bad friend he has been and he turns over a new leaf – well almost.

This is Hannah Shaw’s first picture book and its strong and coherent sense of design perhaps owes something to the influence of Lauren Child. The anarchically styled text, all bulges and angles, follows the line of an illustration or fills a space in a way that underlines the drama of the story and the personalities of the protagonists. Shaw’s sharp line is dynamic, deftly reducing Weasel to a pointy torpedo shape with slits for eyes, while movement is conveyed with scribbly cross hatching. Perspectives tilt off the page or become aerial and flashbacks to Weasel’s evil deeds are wittily contained within frames. This is a rollicking tongue in cheek moral tale in which text and artwork work seamlessly together. It will be much enjoyed by young readers.