"Long ago when the world was just a baby, a family of gods lived in Greece. They lived on Mount Olympus, above clouds that looked like whipped cream." So begins I Am Pan by Caldecott Medal-winning Mordicai Gerstein (The Man Who Walked Between the Towers; The Night World; A Book). This gleeful, longer-than-usual picture book is narrated by Pan himself, and illustrated with marvelous, aptly vivacious comic-book-style panels and cartoon bubbles.
Pan, the hairy, hooved and horned god of Noise and Confusion (among other things) explodes into the world, "in the beautiful green valley of Arcadia." Even pre-birth, the midwife hears "snickers and sneezes" before she hears a heartbeat. Pan's father, Hermes, decides to let Papa Zeus name the screeching, furry baby, if it is a baby. "We'll call him Pan, because he delights all our hearts. Pan means all!" proclaims insta-smitten Papa Zeus. Pan soon decides to "cheer things up" at the grumpy, boring palace on Olympus, snatching Aunt Artemis's arrows and shredding his father's mail to confetti. "I hate to admit it, but he scares me," says Ares, the god of war. Pan is promptly booted back to Arcadia, where wild, over-the-top adventures unfurl in mini-chapters such as "I Invent Panic," "I Fall in Love with the Moon" and "The Monster Typhon." Gerstein revels in the entertaining human-ness of the Olympians, and brings his own hilarity and modern touch to the party.
Children who have been called high-energy (or pests) all their lives will find a kindred spirit in the irrepressible Pan. As Pan would say, "Yeeeaaahoooo!" --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness