THE TRIPLE BANANA SPLIT BOY/EL NIÑO GOLOSO

Enrique, el niño goloso, is a boy with a sweet tooth, utterly unable to control his extreme desire for sugary foods. Forbidden by his father to indulge excessively, Enrique feels deprived of his right to eat desserts. The obsessed boy plans to sneak treats every day after school until his mother makes a bargain to allow him whatever he likes on Monday and Friday afternoons. After gorging on a huge banana split, Enrique returns home with face and hair all gooey and sticky, feeling slightly sick and horrified that he looks like his nightmare, El Coco, a “fearsome creature with a huge mouth and sticky hair” that continually threatens to smother Enrique in chocolate. Now chastened, he reduces his portions, and El Coco gradually disappears from Enrique’s dreams. The very lengthy dual English/Spanish text and Fields’s acrylic paintings of a cherubic, overweight boy combine to create an overtly didactic tale that kids will see through a mile away. Flawed in its delivery and appeal. (Picture book. 6-8)