BAD BANANA

If life gives you bad bananas, make banana bread.

Rather than resisting their fate, the anthropomorphic foods in this quirky story long to be deemed delicious. At first, however, the titular banana misses out on the chance to be eaten. Others in the bunch fulfill their purpose, happily sliced into cereal, packed in a lunchbox, or made into a sundae. The plot thickens when the protagonist laments, “But I was never picked…and then something strange happened…I got spots!” Cartoon-style illustrations show spots marring the peel, much to the disgust of a blond-haired, pale-skinned child: “Ewww! It’s all rotten and gross.” Our rejected hero is horrified until the child’s mother has a great idea: Mixed with other foods (each also illustrated with googly eyes, smiles, and appendages), the banana becomes a key ingredient for banana bread batter. “HOORAY!!” the foodstuffs exclaim as the batter is poured into a bread pan, their unified voices indicated by a speech balloon. The silly, somewhat odd effect of batter speckled with smiles and sets of happy eyes, like so many walnuts or chocolate chips, may make some literal-minded readers balk, but in what reads like a voice from the beyond, the banana rejoices, “I’m not disgusting…I’m not a bad banana…I’m a good banana!”

A-peel-ing.