DID YOU TAKE THE B FROM MY _OOK?

A metafictive picture _ook with playful typography to _oot.

The opening text directly addresses readers, listing some of the narrator’s favorite things without ever visually depicting said narrator. In fact, there are no pictures at all in the first few double-page spreads, only text. The first page reads, in part: “I have favorite things. They are bats and beaches and bread and bushes and bulldozers.” On the next page readers are invited to say “bubububub…bobobobob…brrrrrrrrr.” The final statement indicates a chill in the air, and the narrator sneezes in the next spread with a swirling “Aaaaacchhhoooooo!!!!” across the pages. This instigates the titular premise: the sneeze apparently does away with all b’s, and the text is written accordingly while accompanying pictures depict the b-free objects. “I love my _ed,” reads the text next to a line drawing of a bed, for example. After several such spreads accompanied by pictures that cumulatively add the b-free things together in a silly scene of a _eetle, _utterfly, and a couple _ulls jumping on the _ed, the narrator implores readers to call for the letter b to “come _ack!” And back it comes for a celebratory ending. Throughout, bold, graphic typography provides cues for tone in reading aloud, while the simple digital illustrations add to ample metafictive humor.

_ravo! (Picture book. 3-7)