Boy Wonders

April 11, 2011
Runaway punnery and nonstop questions drive this rhyming book, which calls attention to similar-sounding words and figures of speech. Brown's (Hallowilloween) title refers to a pensive boy who asks, "Are you ever perplexed? Completely vexed?" and unleashes his ruminations. The text, illustrated in surreal acrylics that convey an imagination in overdrive, opens in a high-energy yet manageable way: "Do bees get hives?/ Do onions cry?/ Is pepper apt to sneeze?/ Do paper plates/ and two-by-fours/ remember being trees?" As pages turn, absurd tongue-twisters and weird images accumulate, as in a portrait of a frowning blue-violet bird in an icy landscape: "Would a happy toucan/ from the Yucatan/ become cantankerous/ up in Anchorage/ or the Yukon?/ How about in Tucson?" Enjoyment depends on a pleasure in assonance and consonance, and a capacity to deconstruct skewed metaphors ("Do clouds get jealous during storms,/ and steal each other's thunder?"); more than anything, this one seems likely to spur discussions about the idioms, animals, and vocabulary that appear within. Brown keeps the pace fast and furious, and his warped wordplay suggests a caffeinated Jon Agee. Ages 4â8.

May 1, 2011

This boy doesn't just wonder, he throws readers a forceful invitation: "May I ask you something? / Are you ever perplexed? / Completely vexed? / Do you have questions? / Queries? / Odd theories?" He does.

Brown's book is in the grip of an effervescent momentum. Not that it really has anything to do with asking questions—of curiosity, of inquiry—though the boy sure does ask lots of questions. It is what, and especially how, he asks that spins the wheel. The story is shuttled along on Brown's fine artwork: slightly jittery, slightly sinister, with blasts of color alternating with pages in shadow and clever interpretations of the boy's increasingly loopy questions. His mind is a tinderbox to which Brown applies a match. "Do onions cry?" "Is water scared of waterfalls?" He adds some subversive wordplay as kindling: "Do clouds get jealous during storms, and steal each other's thunder?" And "[i]f I'm too tired, am I a bike?" Soon thereafter, great logs are thrown on the fire. "Would a happy toucan / from the Yucatan / become cantankerous / up in Anchorage / or the Yukon? / What about Tucson?"

In the end, the questions and words are whole lotta fun, but it is the music the book makes that is the most arresting entertainment. (Picture book. 6 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2011

Gr 1-4-The connotations of everyday words and sayings are pondered and turned inside out and upside down in this wholly original paean to intellectual curiosity. The title sets the tone for one ever-wondering youngster's take on the meaning of words and ideas. The boy's delightfully nonsensical rhyming questions reveal no clear answers; they only spark more queries. Listeners will easily "get" the thinking behind some of the wordplay inherent in the child's questions ("Do taffy pullers ever push and make a glob of sticky mush?" "Do all giraffes have high-pitched laughs?"), but other wonderments require higher contextual knowledge ("Just for the sake or argument, /suppose I became an Argonaut./Would I say 'Arrgh' a lot, like a pirate?"). The artist's trademark stylized illustrations, flat, hip, and jazzy, are rendered in a palette of predominantly blue/green/yellow acrylics. With its large-scale illustrations and musical wordplay, this title is perfect for read-aloud sharing and will amuse and stimulate listeners of any age.-Kathleen Finn, St. Francis Xavier School, Winooski, VT

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2011
Preschool-G A gifted illustrator with a love for wordplay, Brown has gathered all the silly questions he could think of and made pictures to match. Sometimes the illustration outdoes the text, as with the pairing of an appealing nautical scene with this odd rhyme from the book's boy narrator: Just for the sake of argument, / Suppose I become an Argonaut. / Would I say Arrgh' a lot, like a pirate? / Would they require it? For the most part, though, the queries are quicker and less labored: Are phones annoyed if no one calls? / Do ants, when anxious, climb the walls? / Is water scared of waterfalls? Brown's bright acrylic paintings are worth studying: all sorts of inanimate objects look very human, like the storm clouds who want to steal each other's thunder and the pepper shaker who blows his top sneezing. The narrator himself undergoes many transformations, best of all into a puzzled boy whose head is constructed of jigsaw pieces.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)