Offers entertainment and will likely whet appetites for s’mores, but lacks clarity.
In this debut illustrated children’s book, a bad French fry causes trouble in a land of fun, delicious food.
In Fun Food Land, locals enjoy stopping by the Poutine Café, where French-E-Fry is owner and chef. Not only is the food great, it’s also free. The chef has Fry Friends who live under his protective hat (a beret, of course), who help him remember recipes and propose new ones. But one day, the chef tells Miss Cupcake about his suggestion for a new dessert: s’mores! The recipe starts with capturing some marshmallows when they aren’t looking, then melting them, drizzling them with chocolate, sandwiching them between graham crackers…and eating them. Horrified, Miss Cupcake hurries to warn Mr. and Mrs. Marshmallow, who panic and run, leaving a sticky trail behind. At the café, a regular called Pops discovers the truth: a rotten potato named Larry has somehow infiltrated the Fry Friends under the chef’s beret. Larry comes from a bad neighborhood, Junk Food Land, where the “unhappy packaged foods with bad attitudes live,” and he wants to plant “French-E-Fry’s head with many Fun Food Land residents as main ingredients!” Pops and Miss Cupcake come up with a cunning plan to foil Larry, and everyone celebrates at the end with marshmallow hugs and free poutine. The logic of Joelle’s and Beaupre’s tale doesn’t make much sense: how does the chef consist of being a container of fries, which are also independent beings? And if it’s horrifying to eat marshmallows, why not French fries, the main ingredient in poutine? Poutine (non-Canadian parents may need to explain the reference) is greasy-spoon fare. Residents of Fun Food Land include the Marshmallows, Miss Cupcake, Danny Donut, and Hamburger Harold, who hardly make a strong contrast to the denizens of Junk Food Land. And it’s a little odd to make s’mores, that campfire favorite, an object of horror. These difficulties aside, the book is amusing, with an exciting story of danger averted through cooperation, planning, and daring. Joelle’s illustrations are dynamic, colorful, and expressive, helping to tell the story.
Offers entertainment and will likely whet appetites for s’mores, but lacks clarity.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 28
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A joyful celebration.
Families in a variety of configurations play, dance, and celebrate together.
The rhymed verse, based on a song from the Noodle Loaf children’s podcast, declares that “Families belong / Together like a puzzle / Different-sized people / One big snuggle.” The accompanying image shows an interracial couple of caregivers (one with brown skin and one pale) cuddling with a pajama-clad toddler with light brown skin and surrounded by two cats and a dog. Subsequent pages show a wide array of families with members of many different racial presentations engaging in bike and bus rides, indoor dance parties, and more. In some, readers see only one caregiver: a father or a grandparent, perhaps. One same-sex couple with two children in tow are expecting another child. Smart’s illustrations are playful and expressive, curating the most joyful moments of family life. The verse, punctuated by the word together, frequently set in oversized font, is gently inclusive at its best but may trip up readers with its irregular rhythms. The song that inspired the book can be found on the Noodle Loaf website.
A joyful celebration. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-22276-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Rise x Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
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