Franklin's Big Search-and-Solve Flap Book

Britta Santowski is a freelance writer in Victoria.

As its title suggests, this big book has Franklin the turtle and his
buddy Bear solving a mystery, and it encourages the reader to
participate in solving the mystery with the “over 60 fun flaps to
lift.”

What the title omits is the book’s male centricity: all animal
characters are drawn generically so that our visually trained eye
assumes the male gender. The two notable exceptions are the
once-appearing distant image of the mother bear, identified as female by
her apron and pie in hand, and the leisurely lounging Beaver, identified
as female by a pair of pink sunglasses. Other animals appearing in the
story include Snail, Rabbit, Fox, Skunk, and Mouse (a Sherlock
Holmes–like detective who shadows Franklin and Bear). Off in the
distance one can also spot the tiny image of the sister bear who is
holding a flower.

The story is simple: Franklin and Bear set out to find the missing
blueberries, and over the course of five pages go to Bear’s house,
Beaver’s pond, Snail’s tree, and the ice cream shop. Each page
contains a story line of text, followed by text in bold that guides
reader participation: “Be sure to look carefully for more
clues—there are lots of underwater hiding spots too!” Underneath the
flaps are clues (the mouse detective finding a snake in a bucket),
irrelevant images (the lounging beaver pops out from behind a tree for
no particular reason), and story-enhancing text (“I think we’re
getting warmer”).

While the plot is somewhat engaging and the images are attractively
presented in a brightly coloured cartoonlike manner, this book presents
boys as active and girls as passive. Not recommended.