Seriously, please stop.
Cleaned-up vocabulary makes You Have to Fucking Eat (2014) palatable for a child audience—but it’s still a picture book for adults.
Just as Mansbach followed up on the success of Go the Fuck to Sleep (2011) with its tamer companion, Seriously, Just Go to Sleep (2012), this title is billed as “the children’s version” of its more colorfully titled counterpart. While the absence of f-bombs will make most adults more inclined to share it with their finicky progeny, the voice remains one of adult exasperation, not childish agency or transformation. The ethnically diverse children depicted in Brozman’s digital illustrations doggedly refuse all entreaties and pleas to eat—not one caves and tries something or decides to like it, à la Sam I Am’s antagonist in Seuss’ picky-eating classic, or otherwise takes the story’s reins. That’s all well and good, but it relegates the text to the domain of adult venting, which undermines its status as “the children’s version.” In a mildly clever call-back to the prior books about going to sleep, the closing lines admit failure in nourishing the fussy child and then say, “But on the bright side, maybe this is the night / You seriously just go to sleep.” Will this series be put to bed now? Or will other parenting travails provoke yet more cathartically crass titles and toned-down companions?
Seriously, please stop. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61775-408-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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