SPORK

Children of mixed marriages are about to find an unlikely ally in their cutlery drawers. Spork stands out. With a spoon for a mum and a fork for a dad, Spork is simultaneously too round and too pointy to fit in. Time and again he’s passed over at the dinner table. That is, until the day a “messy thing” joins the family and everyone sees that when it comes to managing its baby food only a true spork will do. While some picture-book tales have difficulty promoting the “different can be good” message without slipping into deep didactism, Maclear’s text feels nearly effortless. The inanimate-object identification also pairs brilliantly with Arsenault’s melding of mixed media and digital art. Against the mostly black-and-white images, the frenzied red globs of the baby’s food explode off the printed page. Immediate comparisons are bound to be made to Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Spoon (illustrated by Scott Magoon, 2009), but any good kitchen has room for both. A sublime little parable. (Picture book. 4-8)