Deliciously playful and imaginative.
A young Inuit boy loves bananas so much he eventually becomes one.
There’s no doubt that bananas are Benny’s absolute favorite food. The boy, who wears a T. rex costume wherever he goes, gobbles up banana pancakes for breakfast, rides a bicycle with a banana seat, and even eats his tacos with fried bananas and hot banana peppers. Benny eats so much of his beloved yellow fruit over weeks and months that one morning he wakes up to find he’s transformed into a bananasaurus rex. In many of the images, Benny can be seen wearing his patched-up, well-loved dino suit. In others he is drawn as an actual dinosaur, complete with a hungry mouth full of teeth, hitting maximum appeal for fans of the Cretaceous critter. The illustrations are charming, especially the impressive bananasaurus rex, its arms made of a peeling banana, its tail the stem. The book’s silliness is its strength; it will certainly reach imaginative little readers who might themselves be obsessed with a particular creature, costume, or food. Brown-skinned, brown-haired Benny uses the Inuktitut words for mother (Anaana) and grandmother (Anaanatsiaq), asking his Anaanatsiaq about the word for banana. An opening letter to readers explains these Inuktitut words, their uses in the book, and how to pronounce them. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Deliciously playful and imaginative. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781772274424
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Inhabit Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
Still, this young boy’s imagination is a powerful force for helping him deal with life, something that should be true for...
Oliver, of first-day-of-school alligator fame, is back, imagining adventures and still struggling to find balance between introversion and extroversion.
“When Oliver found his egg…” on the playground, mint-green backgrounds signifying Oliver’s flight into fancy slowly grow larger until they take up entire spreads; Oliver’s creature, white and dinosaurlike with orange polka dots, grows larger with them. Their adventures include sharing treats, sailing the seas and going into outer space. A classmate’s yell brings him back to reality, where readers see him sitting on top of a rock. Even considering Schmid’s scribbly style, readers can almost see the wheels turning in his head as he ponders the girl and whether or not to give up his solitary play. “But when Oliver found his rock… // Oliver imagined many adventures // with all his friends!” This last is on a double gatefold that opens to show the children enjoying the creature’s slippery curves. A final wordless spread depicts all the children sitting on rocks, expressions gleeful, wondering, waiting, hopeful. The illustrations, done in pastel pencil and digital color, again make masterful use of white space and page turns, although this tale is not nearly as funny or tongue-in-cheek as Oliver and His Alligator (2013), nor is its message as clear and immediately accessible to children.
Still, this young boy’s imagination is a powerful force for helping him deal with life, something that should be true for all children but sadly isn’t. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-7573-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
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
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