Jerry Pinkney's not-quite-wordless treatment of the classic Aesop fable features a cast of animal characters rendered with a keen eye for detail and movement, set against the muted backdrop of a lovely desert landscape. Words comprising the moral build cumulatively across a series of pages ("Slow...Slow and ... Slow and steady ... "). Wordless spreads between the appearance of each new word show the continuing action (or, in the case of the Hare, occasional inaction). Pinkney uses a mix of full-page and panel illustrations, and there is much to discover for anyone who spends time with his gorgeous images. His decision to put clothing on the animals was, he explains in a note, a way to distinguish them from the landscape, and he hopes is suggestive of the splashes of color provided by desert blooms. While the ending of the story may come as no surprise, its aftermath is: the Hare is a good sport, and congratulates his opponent. (Ages 4-8)

This companion to the Caldecott Medal-winning The Lion & the Mouse is Jerry Pinkney's most stunning masterpiece yet. Even the slowest tortoise can defeat the quickest hare, and even the proudest hare can learn a timeless lesson from the most humble tortoise: Slow and steady wins the race! Here is a superbly rendered journey from starting line to finish that embodies the bravery, perseverance, and humility we can all find inside ourselves.