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HOW TO EAT AN AIRPLANE

Name: HOW TO EAT AN AIRPLANE
Author: Peter Pearson
ISBN: 978-0-06-232062-9

From the Bad Idea Book Club series

by Peter Pearson ; illustrated by Mircea Catusanu ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 24, 2016

This series opener is a successful combination of etiquette book and airplane cookery: who’d have thunk it? (Informational...

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A man ate an airplane. This is true. Though this is not his story, Pearson uses it to ground a surprisingly informative book about the technology (and etiquette).

As Pearson explains at the closure of this crazy business, a gentleman by the name of Michel Lotito ate a Cessna 150, which, granted, is not a Boeing 747, but even so....In the book proper he gives this curious act a suitable touch of insanity, graced with Emily Post–like commands on the proper etiquette of airplane-eating. The best venue is a party (for a little help from your friends). Your invitees must be sent tickets of invitation and then met at the gate. Serve jet-fuel aperitifs to wash down the crunchy mechanical canapes. Pearson tosses in some humdinger words—aileron, fuselage, the Tardiness Toast: "To friends and clocks and paradox. / I'm usually on time. Oops"—but he makes them go down even easier than Cessna 150 parts. Meanwhile, Catusanu's artwork is full of hard-candy color, inviting and playful, with a relatively diverse cast of human characters among the partygoers and even a dog and a cat. Even the "Airplane Facts" at the end of the book are designed to both amuse and instruct. "Planes are heavy. Just the paint on a commercial airliner weighs between 400 and 1,000 pounds!"

This series opener is a successful combination of etiquette book and airplane cookery: who’d have thunk it? (Informational picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: May 24, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-232062-9

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW TO WALK A DUMP TRUCK
by Peter Pearson ; illustrated by Mircea Catusanu

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 21, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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THE BIG CHEESE

From the Food Group series

by Jory John ; illustrated by Pete Oswald ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 2023

From curds to riches, from meltdown to uplift—this multicourse romp delivers.

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A winning wheel of cheddar with braggadocio to match narrates a tale of comeuppance and redemption.

From humble beginnings among kitchen curds living “quiet lives of pasteurization,” the Big Cheese longs to be the best and builds success and renown based on proven skills and dependable results: “I stuck to the things I was good at.” When newcomer Wedge moves to the village of Curds-on-Whey, the Cheese’s star status wobbles and falls. Turns out that quiet, modest Wedge is also multitalented. At the annual Cheese-cathlon, Wedge bests six-time winner Cheese in every event, from the footrace and chess to hat making and bread buttering. A disappointed Cheese throws a full-blown tantrum before arriving at a moment of truth: Self-calming, conscious breathing permits deep relief that losing—even badly—does not result in disaster. A debrief with Wedge “that wasn’t all about me” leads to further realizations: Losing builds empathy for others; obsession with winning obscures “the joy of participating.” The chastened cheddar learns to reserve bragging for lifting up friends, because anyone can be the Big Cheese. More didactic and less pun-rich than previous entries in the Food Group series, this outing nevertheless couples a cheerful refrain with pithy life lessons that hit home. Oswald’s detailed, comical illustrations continue to provide laughs, including a spot with Cheese onstage doing a “CHED” talk.

From curds to riches, from meltdown to uplift—this multicourse romp delivers. (Picture book. 4-8)