Yip, Yap, and Yep are three pandas. One day they decide to leave the forest and see the world. "There are apples and berries and eggs to eat," says Yep. "There are cities and things to do," says Yap. So the pandas take a train to the city. There, they ride a bicycle in the circus and play music in the street. But when the snows come, the city begins to lose its allure for three cold pandas. And when they became separated by the crowd, they long for the safety of their bamboo forest. By turns, funny and poignant, Jan Wahl's tale of pandas who long to see the world is exquisitely illustrated by Naava.
this was an ok book. there are lots of stories just like this. the fact that it was pandas made it a bit better though. this is a book that you would give a shy kid in class so that they wouldn't feel bad if they were having trouble making friends.
Normally, I love Jan Wahl, but this story meanders. At first I thought it was going to be about facts on Pandas, but then they go into the city and pretend they are humans getting jobs. The jobs don't work out and the pandas become street musicians. There is a folktale about how they got their black markings. The humans are tolerant of the pandas on the train but it goes downhill from there and they regard them more of a nuisance. The pandas decide they don't like the city (duh) and go back to the forest. The artwork is flat and the characters look alike.
What? What is this even supposed to be? There is absolutely no point to this story at all. This book is awful. Also, in my edition there was an error on page 20.
I cannot for the life of me figure out how this book got published. It's so, so strange.