Clever story; for school aged kids ( )

Hm. I don't think I get it. Does power create racism? Or did Louis I's new-found power just allow him to finally act on his racist tendencies? Presumably, before the crown, he was just fine grazing alongside the black and brown sheep. I guess the message is that power corrupts? That all the sheep would be happier with their anarchic society, with no ruler? Or is the message that we, the people, should not act like Louis I's fellow sheep by doing whatever the guy with the crown says? Because I guess it's implied at the end that all the sheep are just going to blindly follow the wolf's orders to march right into his mouth. So maybe it's an argument for democracy - don't just follow the person with the crown. But it's not implied that some other sheep might have been a better ruler, so it still seems like an argument for having no ruler. But I'm also not sure that we learned that racism is bad, necessarily. Louis I wasn't really punished for his racist policies, and the sheep didn't appear to be suffering under the racist rule, except maybe in the one picture where all the sheep are running away from Louis I (but that includes the white sheep). All that happened was that Louis I by accident lost his crown and became a regular sheep again. Which doesn't really seem like fated comeuppance. And now the sheep are left with the strife of segregation and no ruler but it doesn't seem to bother the sheep too much. Louis just looks kind of sad without his crown and everyone goes back to grazing. Was the racist part only in there to really bring home that Louis I was using his power for evil? There are other ways to show that, especially in a kids book. Not that I'm against kids books tackling issues like racism, I think it's really important actually...but Louis I's progression of things his did didn't seem all that bad until the racism part, and there was no explicit punishment for it. I'm curious to hear what kids would say is the point of this story because I'm clearly baffled.

Especially since Tallec also wrote [b:Waterloo & Trafalgar|13592379|Waterloo & Trafalgar|Olivier Tallec|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1350960127s/13592379.jpg|19180463] which is a great book.

I think it's time to end this review because I've thought too much about this book by now. ( )

This is a clever book about the dangers of having too much power. Louis the sheep lucks into power one day when a crown is blown near him. In the beginning, he has great ideas for the future of his flock, but unfortunately, the power went to his head and he made the decision that only those that were the same as him could be in his flock. A short while after this decision, the wind kicked up again and blew his crown away. ( )