by Eric Carle (Author) Eric Carle (Illustrator)
Yes, there's something strange, something funny and even downright preposterous on every page of this book. But it's not a mistake - it's nonsense! And it's also surrealism. Nonsense lies at the heart of many beloved nursery rhymes.
Children readily accept odd statements like "the cow jumped over the moon" and "the dish ran away with the spoon." This fanciful bending of reality is also basic to surrealism.
In this book, nonsense and surrealism combine to spark creativity and imagination. What's true? What's impossible? What's absolutely absurd?From Eric Carle, creator of the classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, comes a book to make children laugh and think, preparing them for a lifetime of loving both words and art.
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Preschool-Grade 2. Challenging readers to believe six impossible things before breakfast, Carle creates fun and laughter in this homage to the surrealist artist René Magritte. Forming part of a loose trilogy with The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse (2011) and Friends (2013), Carle’s latest renders fanciful illustrations of absurd creations. A centerfold leopard-tiger sports a front half of spots and back half of stripes. One preposterous spread renders a steam engine with white sheep coming out of its smokestack. Incredibly, a mother kangaroo carries a human baby in its pouch, and a gleeful horse and jockey trade heads to portray two ridiculous characters. Brief rhymes accompany the artwork executed with painted-tissue-paper collage. For instance, an illustration of a giant yellow bird walking with human feet states, “This yellow rubber duck I found / Has feet for walking on the ground, / But don’t you think that this duck ought-er / Get webbed feet to swim in water?” A plethora of synonyms for nonsense and oddities swarm in a word bubble on the last two pages as a little boy pushes a giant magician rabbit offstage. The oversize format is perfect for storytimes and silly times all round. Carle hits it out of the nonsense park! HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Carle is one of those legendary names whose books always engenders interest. His generations of fans will be thrilled to learn of a new offering.
Copyright 2015 Booklist, LLC Used with permission.
This book draws its readers and listeners in with the rhythm and spirit of ballyhoo for a circus sideshow: “Welcome, friends! / Don’t be slow. / Step right up to / The Nonsense Show!” Meanwhile, the accompanying illustration, in Carle’s trademark rich-hued tissue-paper- collage style, shows a large rabbit pulling a small child out of a hat. Things get stranger with every page turn, and each scene works as a stand-alone vignette. A mouse chases a cat. The heads of a two-headed snake—one head on each end—ask each other about their missing tails. The bottom half of a man leaves its top half behind. Like the art, the rhyming text eschews logic and reason, adding another layer of unabashed nonsense to the book’s offbeat tone: “Could a leopard / Change his spot / To a tiger-ish stripe? / Probably not. // Would a tiger wish / To swap his stripe / For a leopard’s spot? / Certainly not.” On the last spread, the child who came out of that hat at the beginning brings closure as he wheels the rabbit-magician off the page. With a nod to surrealist painter René Magritte (“Ceci n’est pas une pipe”) on the dedication page, the book, with its cleanly designed white pages, makes the unexpected elements of the imagery stand out and prompts questions and wonder.
Copyright 2015 Horn Book Magazine, LLC Used with permission.
The celebrated picture-book artist enthusiastically joins the nonsense tradition. Carle's nearly 50-year career has produced myriad concept books about counting, the alphabet, and colors, as well as simple, original stories, retellings of fairy tales, and picture books that push the physical boundaries of the form. This latest proves that Carle can reinvent himself as a creator in the field, as he now revels in the absurd, eschewing any pretense of teaching a concept or even engaging with story. Instead, spread after spread uses nonsensical text and sublimely ridiculous pictures to provoke laughter and head-shaking delight. In addition to the book's title, art immediately cues the book's silly tone: the cover displays one of Carle's signature collages against an empty white background; it depicts a duckling emerging from a peeled-back banana peel. The title-page art presents a deer sprouting flowers rather than antlers from its head. When the book proper begins, and language joins illustration, readers are ushered into a series of situations and scenarios that upend expectations and play with conventions. "Ouch! Who's that in my pouch?" asks a kangaroo with a little blond child instead of a joey in her pouch. Another scene shows two snakes, joined at the middle and looking for their respective tails. A picture book made to incite pleasure and joy. (Picture book. 3-7)
Copyright 2015 Kirkus Reviews, LLC Used with permission.
Carle delivers a carnival of pictorial and rhyming jokes, illustrated in chunky painted paper collage and dedicated to surrealist painter Rene Magritte and The Treachery of Images, with its famous jest, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (Carle previously explored Expressionism in The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse and abstract art in Friends). The first spread pictures a rabbit magician pulling a boy out of a hat: "Welcome friends!/ Don't be slow./ Step right up to/ The Nonsense Show!" Each spread stands alone, sometimes striking an apt silly note (a small gray mouse is seen holding a much larger cat by a leash) and sometimes falling flat when the rhymes do not scan or the jokes are middling ("Could a leopard/ Change his spot/ To a tiger-ish stripe?/ Probably not"). The funniest moments involve topsy-turvy situations, as when a lion ringmaster tames human acrobats or when a woman swings her racquet at a zooming green fruit: "What a funny-looking ball/ Thought the tennis ace/ And wound up/ With applesauce/ In her face." Despite a few hiccups, it's kid-pleasing silliness through and through. Ages 3-7. (Oct.)
Copyright 2015 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.PreS-Gr 1--Nonsense indeed! A rabbit pulls a boy out of a hat, a mouse chases a cat, and a girl plays tennis with an apple instead of a ball. These are just a few of the goofy images readers will find in Carle's latest picture book. In rhyming text and surrealist illustrations, the book is full of Carle's distinct art featuring bright and colorfully textured images. Some figures will be instantly recognizable to readers, such as the yellow duck (10 Little Rubber Ducks) and the mama kangaroo (Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?), but with a fantastic twist; the rubber duck has human feet and the kangaroo is carrying a human child in her pouch. Children will love seeing everyday images turned on their heads and will delight in exploring these illustrations again and again. VERDICT A sure hit as a read-aloud and a definite purchase for picture book collections.--Amy Nolan, St. Joseph Public Library, St. Joseph, MI
Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.