COUNTING TO BANANAS

Banana is ready to be the star of an all-fruit counting book.

“1 plum / 2 figs / 3 oranges / 4 pigs.” Banana cries foul—pigs aren’t fruit! “But no other fruit rhymes with figs,” explains the invisible narrator, who then goes on to rhyme pears with bears and peaches with leeches. “What about bananas?” Banana wants to know. Banana hollers at the narrator to stop putting animals in a fruit counting book, but alas, Banana’s frustrations are ignored. Banana has had enough but obviously has not learned that it is never a good idea to argue with your narrator. When the text reads “17 lemons / 18 prunes / 19 apricots / 20 baboons,” Banana gets the narrator to change baboons to raccoons but still wants the spotlight…be careful what you ask for Banana! In the tradition of Mac Barnett’s Count the Monkeys (2013), Tillotson’s rib-tickling debut is not to be missed. The silly argumentative text plays out in speech balloons sharing the pages with simple numerical descriptions progressing from one to 20 and then counting up by tens to 100. Ireland-based Portuguese illustrator Lourenço’s digitally created illustrations of cartoon fruit with faces and expressive animals are bright, dynamic, and foolish. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Fruity fun for everyone.