The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Barron, Rex

Fed Up! A Feast of Frazzled Foods

32 pp. | Putnam | October, 2000 | Trade ISBN 0-399-23450-0 $$15.99

(2) K-3 As this darkly comic alphabet book tells it, the life of a food item is generally nasty, brutish, and short. Exhibit A: "Anxious Apples" stare in open-eyed terror at a wantonly discarded apple core lying beside them. Yet all is not doom and gloom: the sleek, dimly lit acrylic and colored pencil illustrations convey some of their subjects in less dire straits. No doubt kids won't pick up on all the humor; still, it's nice to see an alphabet book with some bite.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2001