![]() ![]() Additional facts about the animal appear in a smaller font, such as: “Beavers have transparent eyelids to help them see under water.” The gathering of land, air, and water animals includes a raven, a flying squirrel, and a sea lion. The narrative is written from the point of view of a parent talking to their child: “If you were a beaver, I would gnaw on trees with my teeth to build a cozy lodge for us to sleep in during the day.” Text appears in big, easy-to-read type, with the name of the creature in boldface. This reassuring picture book exemplifies how parents throughout the animal kingdom make homes for their offspring. Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. 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). 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. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. ![]() 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 sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!” his lamb baas back. Totally fun, visually startling, and a paean to creative thinking.Ī succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.Ī grumpy bull says, “DADA!” his calf moos back. The terse text works wonderfully as a foil to the exuberant acrylic paintings, mostly executed in primary colors with bold black lines and shapes and a generous use of white space. When the narrator declares the timeout is over, the unnamed protagonist is back in place, quietly grinning. While the unseen narrator continues to lecture (“I hope you’re really thinking about it”), the pig stands proudly on the moon, rainbow colors radiating out in triumph. Perhaps the young artist has been busy absorbing imagery from the book on the table. The sky outside the rocket looks like a Miró painting, with abstract stars and planets, but the next double-page spread also includes Matisse-inspired shapes. Within the rocket, the two animals both contentedly sip ice cream sodas through long, striped, curvy straws. Pig and rocket blast off, along with the caged red bird seen in the background. Just like Harold’s purple crayon or the magic brush of Chinese folklore, the pencil allows the piglet to draw a spaceship filled with treats such as pizza and popcorn. There is also a pencil that proves to be a potent tool. Adult readers will note that the rebellious pig sulks in a room with two books, one titled Houdini and the other Book of Art. This is the last straw for the second-person narrator, who orders a timeout indoors. ![]() An anthropomorphic pig stars in an adventure reminiscent of Max’s and Harold’s but with a Miró-like journey to outer space.Īt the book’s opening, the porcine protagonist experiences a spectacular skateboard crash.
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