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THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS VEGETABLES

Name: THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS VEGETABLES
Author: Kyle Lukoff
ISBN: 9781250867841

by Kyle Lukoff ; illustrated by Andrea Tsurumi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 27, 2024

Subversion in the salad! Destabilization with dressing! Social constructs fall by the wayside in this clever review.

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A lesson in agriculture has larger implications in this deep dive into what constitutes a vegetable.

Sent to the community garden next door to pick some veggies for a meal, young Chester, who presents as Asian, is quick to discover that every supposed “vegetable” he encounters declares itself to be something else entirely. The broccoli claims to be a flower, the potato, a root, and the kale, a leaf. In fact, the supposed veggies all make the startling argument that there’s no such thing as vegetables. Chester attempts to fight back with facts, but every definition falls apart. Veggies are plants? So are trees. They don’t have sugar, suggests Chester. What about sugar beets? They’re good in salads? So’s bacon! Lukoff isn’t attempting to break down taxonomies but is instead making a larger point about the sometimes arbitrary ways in which humans label our world. Larger points about semantic satiation and social constructs may be lost on the elementary school crowd, but a story about plants arguing their way out of a salad bowl is funny no matter how you slice it. It helps enormously that the art is by Tsurumi, a master of hilarious visual gags and irate tomatoes, who brings to life in a cartoon-based format the gently defiant edibles.

Subversion in the salad! Destabilization with dressing! Social constructs fall by the wayside in this clever review. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024

ISBN: 9781250867841

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
ARE YOU A FRIEND OF DOROTHY?
by Kyle Lukoff ; illustrated by Levi Hastings

- BOOK REVIEW
MY LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK ABOUT PRIDE
by Kyle Lukoff ; illustrated by Michelle Jing Chan

- BOOK REVIEW
A WORLD WORTH SAVING
by Kyle Lukoff

- PERSPECTIVES
With Children’s Books, the Weirder the Better

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THE CRAYONS GO BACK TO SCHOOL

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2023

Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings.

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The Crayons head back to class in this latest series entry.

Daywalt’s expository text lays out the basics as various Crayons wave goodbye to the beach, choose a first-day outfit, greet old friends, and make new ones. As in previous outings, the perennially droll illustrations and hand-lettered Crayon-speak drive the humor. The ever wrapperless Peach, opining, “What am I going to wear?” surveys three options: top hat and tails, a chef’s toque and apron, and a Santa suit. New friends Chunky Toddler Crayon (who’s missing a bite-sized bit of their blue point) and Husky Toddler Crayon speculate excitedly on their common last name: “I wonder if we’re related!” White Crayon, all but disappearing against the page’s copious white space, sits cross-legged reading a copy of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. And Yellow and Orange, notable for their previous existential argument about the color of the sun, find agreement in science class: Jupiter, clearly, is yellow AND orange. Everybody’s excited about art class—“Even if they make a mess. Actually…ESPECIALLY if they make a mess!” Here, a spread of crayoned doodles of butterflies, hearts, and stars is followed by one with fulsome scribbles. Fans of previous outings will spot cameos from Glow in the Dark and yellow-caped Esteban (the Crayon formerly known as Pea Green). (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings. (Picture book. 4-6)

Pub Date: May 16, 2023

ISBN: 9780593621110

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Philomel

Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
THE DAY THE CRAYONS MADE FRIENDS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

- BOOK REVIEW
LITTLE FREDDIE TWO PANTS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Lucy Ruth Cummins

- BOOK REVIEW
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY FROM THE CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

- SEEN & HEARD
Daywalt, Jeffers Collaborate on New ‘Crayons’ Book

- SEEN & HEARD
Daywalt, Jeffers Collaborate on New ‘Crayons’ Book

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)