Tempting fare for venturesome children, with a few tidbits for hipster parents who spend more time in restaurants than...
Wordplay and food play combine as an artist and a food critic explore edibles well beyond peanut butter and jelly.
Actually, jelly (or jam) does put in a couple of appearances—notably toward the end, following Stein’s observation that some eggs become chickens and some become breakfast. Before that though, he answers variations on the titular question, such as: “Can I eat… / …a potato? / …a tomato? / …a tornado?!” No, not a tornado, but “tonnato, a sauce from Italy made with tuna,” and likewise “tournedos” and also “tostada.” Interspersed with general foolery (“If there is…ketchup / is there…ketchdown?”), he goes on to solve the mysteries of pickles, eggplant, and chicken fingers, then closes with a rollicking illustrated list of “Can I Eat?” posers: “pineapple / pinecone / telephone / panettone / pony / cannoli,” etc., on the final page. Aside from one scene of human hands of diverse gender and skin color reaching for said pickles, Rothman focuses on edibles and tableware, and though the individual ingredients in the tostada, the jellyfish platter, and the bowl of uni donburi are hard to distinguish, in general her cleanly drawn and colored meats, veggies, and condiments are both easily recognizable and yummy looking.
Tempting fare for venturesome children, with a few tidbits for hipster parents who spend more time in restaurants than kitchens or farmers markets. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7148-7140-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Phaidon
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip.
The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface.
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina...
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up.
Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields.
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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