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32 pp.
| Sterling
| March, 2020
|
Trade
ISBN 978-1-4549-3402-8
$16.95
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2)
PS
Who would want to eat "yuckaroni smackintosh" or "garble snarfy barflecrunch"? Certainly not this book's protagonist, a wide-eyed, green-skinned, toddler-sized monster. The story of picky-eater Baby's transformation is told entirely through nonsense-word dialogue ("'Erp?' 'NERP'"), which is easy to figure out in context and lots of fun to say: "Frizzle frazzle hotchy potch!" The monster's parents become increasingly desperate for their little one to eat, placing dish after dish in front of the child. But Baby's tastes are low-brow--and its culinary sights set closer to the floor. Reul cleverly foreshadows the problem's solution from the start, with the book jacket and title page showing the family pet (which looks like a baby-dragon-meets-anteater) recoiling from its food. The illustrations--"digital drawings over photographs of cardboard models"--have dimension and humor; everything takes place in the same room, allowing viewers to better acclimate to the weird-looking creatures and unfamiliar "language." This entertaining book may not similarly convert
human picky eaters, but at least they're not being offered "skizzle klumps n' gizzardlumps."