A silly, fun way to introduce vegetables.
A group of vegetables share silly expressions in this pun-heavy concept book for young readers.
Beginning with a disclaimer that all the characters are “100% organic,” Mommy Moo Moo’s picture book, filled with cartoonish versions of vegetables, includes a phrase on each page representing the drawn character. Some are familiar expressions, such as “Okey dokey, artichokey!” Others reference familiar pop-culture figures (the Beatles are depicted as pickled beets, with a reference to Sgt. Pippa as the lead singer) or old jokes (“Cantaloupe tonight” a melon says to a suitor). A head of lettuce leads a congregation of onions and leeks in prayer with the pun “Lettuce pray.” While some of the wordplay will go over the heads of the preschool and lap-reader audience, the alliterative or rhyming phrases are fun to repeat aloud. No genders are mentioned in the text, but many of Edwards’ illustrations are coded with stereotyped gender traits: High-heeled and lipstick-wearing vegetables have eyelashes while a mustachioed tomato and other vegetables do not. Perhaps less amusing is the image of a pumpkin with a tattoo that says Pie whistling at a high-heeled slice of pumpkin pie with a whipped-cream head. Still, the creative depictions of common veggies—a raw beet with pickled backup band, a spud with roots growing from its head in a punk hairstyle, or the especially clever illustration of carrots hiding from a rabbit by posing as a fence—will give readers a solid grin.
A silly, fun way to introduce vegetables.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Damara Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Ideal for any community where children count.
A difficult concept is simply and strikingly illustrated for the very youngest members of any community, with a counting exercise to boot.
From the opening invitation, “Living in community, / it's a lot of FUN! / Lets count the ways. / Lets start with ONE,” Nagaro shows an urban community that is multicultural, supportive, and happy—exactly like the neighborhoods that many families choose to live and raise their children in. Text on every other page rhymes unobtrusively. Unlike the vocabulary found in A Is for Activist (2013), this book’s is entirely age-appropriate (though some parents might not agree that picketing is a way to show “that we care”). In A Is for Activist, a cat was hidden on each page; this time, finding the duck is the game. Counting is almost peripheral to the message. On the page with “Seven bikes and scooters and helmets to share,” identifying toys in an artistic heap is confusing. There is only one helmet for five toys, unless you count the second helmet worn by the girl riding a scooter—but then there are eight items, not seven. Seven helmets and seven toys would have been clearer. That quibble aside, Nagara's graphic design skills are evident, with deep colors, interesting angles, and strong lines, in a mix of digital collage and ink.
Ideal for any community where children count. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-60980-632-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Triangle Square Books for Young Readers
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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