THE ADVENTURES OF THE DISH AND THE SPOON

A loopily nostalgic tale imagines the exploits of the Dish and the Spoon after they ran away. When a gramophone record plays their tune, they can’t resist, and leap out the window, over the white cliffs of Dover and across the Atlantic to New York, where they achieve meteoric success as vaudeville stars. Alas, high living and the advent of new acts (the Knife and the Fork) bring them low. Deeply in debt, they attempt to pay off the loan cutlery by robbing a bank, but tragedy ensues: Dish breaks and is deported; Spoon spends 25 years in prison. Spoon’s narration has just the right air of world-weariness mixed with wide-eyed idealism to draw readers in to the fun, while the mixed-media illustrations employ full-bleed sequential panels to present the whole story. In one, Dish and Spoon cavort in greenbacks; in another, Dish is held at the mercy of sinister utensils. The deliciously optimistic ending reunites the two lovers in a 1950s junk shop, where they realize new possibilities: “[T]here’s a whole new world out there. People who have never seen dishes do tricks with spoons.” Hey-diddle-delightful. (Picture book. 4-8)