Have You Seen My Potty?

Yes, yes, I know. Bear with me.

Despite the gross subject matter, Have You Seen My Potty? is a really great book. I was skeptical at first. But this story is actually humorous, and kids of potty-training age will be riveted, just as they are with all things poop. Best of all, no actual poop appears in this book!

"This is the story of Suzy Sue," the book announces on page one, "who had something very important to do." Suzy Sue appears in the illustration, smiling and proudly holding up her bright red potty chair. Unfortunately, just as she's sitting down to use it, a cow grabs it out from under her and she lands smack on her bottom on the ground.

"What a terrible thing. What an awful to-do. Who would play such a trick on poor Suzy Sue?" A good question, indeed. Why would "a rascal quite ruthless and rotten . . . steal someone's potty from under their bottom!" (At this point, Charlie always interjects, "Suzy Sue fall down! Oh no! Why she fall down?")

Meanwhile, on the other side of the barnyard, the cow, sheep, goat, horse, and several chickens are gathered around to examine the "poo pot" the cow has found just "lying around on the ground." The animals all line up to give it a try while Suzy Sue, stuffed rabbit in tow, searches the farm for her potty.

In a series of clever twists, Suzy Sue asks each of the animals if they've seen her potty, while that animal is actually using the potty. But the potty is hidden from her view each time--by a newspaper, a clump of grass, a scarf being knitted, or just around the corner. A failure of communication arises because Suzy Sue calls the object a potty while the animals are calling it a poo-pot. As the horse puts it, "Of course he'd not seen her potty. He knew this because he had no idea what a potty was!"

Suzy Sue eventually gives up, and since she really really really has to go, she decides to do it au naturale behind a plant. (This, by the way, is the most hilarious thing ever to a two-year-old. "No, Suzy Sue! We not poop in the grass!") Fortunately, the animals realize what she's about to do and provide the poo-pot for her use at the last minute. Whew! So, "That was the story of Suzy Sue, who had something very important to do."

The text is almost laugh-out-loud funny for grown-ups, and the illustrations are great, too. I love all the ways the potty is hidden from Suzy Sue's view, and also the numerous hold-it-in poses of the animals waiting in line for their turn.

My only real complaint with this book is that the story is hard to follow at Charlie's age. It depends on understanding that the animals (and the reader) can see something that Suzie Sue can't, which I believe is a concept developed more around the age of three and a half or four. The text goes back and forth from Suzy Sue's perspective to the animals' perspective, and I'm certain that Charlie isn't following it entirely. This doesn't seem to bother him in the least, however, since he asks for it every time we go to the bathroom and can nearly recite the entire text from memory. It's a huge hit in our household, and I definitely like that it stresses the importance of getting to the bathroom and not just the how-to aspect of using the potty like most other potty training books cover. Highly recommended!

Wave

Don't attempt to read this book unless your preschooler has been to the beach. Wave is an adorable wordless story about a little girl having a conversation, entirely in body language, with the ocean. What I learned when I bought this book several months ago is that the ocean is an unbelievably difficult concept to explain, and even more so when the person you're explaining it to doesn't have a perfect grasp of the English language yet. Water as far as you can see? That's hard to imagine. Why on earth would huge amounts of water move back and forth like that? None of the water I've ever encountered moves of its own accord that way.  Seashells? What?

But your trip to the beach need not be long and involved. We took a trip to Los Angeles in December and spent an hour or so walking along the beach, piling up sand, watching the waves, and sticking our toes in the water (until that became too cold and scary). When we returned home, suddenly Wave was infinitely more comprehensible and more interesting.

The book shows a little girl at the beach "talking to" or playing a game with the waves of the ocean. She stands on the beach at first, watching. She runs away when the water comes toward her, then turns and threatens it back with her arms up over her head. She sticks her toe in, finds it's fun to splash, and kicks up a storm. But when a very large wave appears, she gets nervous and flees again, stopping at a safe distance to stick out her tongue with a "can't catch me" attitude. But she hasn't run far enough! The wave does catch her with such force that she's knocked off her feet. Drenched and seated on the beach as the wave recedes, she's thrilled to find a treasure trove of perfect seashells left behind. When her mother finally takes her home, she looks back over her shoulder in a visual pun--waving goodbye to the wave.

The author and illustrator has set up quite a challenge for herself in this book. Not only is it wordless, which requires her to tell the story entirely in pictures, the illustrations are limited to three colors: black, white, and blue. The scene is nearly identical page after page. A little girl, an ocean, some sand dunes in the background, and a flock of seagulls. Near the end we see some shells and the girl's mother, but most of the pages have nothing but these four elements. Nonetheless, the challenge is met beautifully, with evocative illustrations that are appreciably different from each other and tell a real story.

Once Charlie understood the concept of the ocean, he fell in love with this book. He loves to tell me the story, making "woosh" noises and waving his arms around to illustrate the waves moving back and forth. He points out the seashells and the starfish, and talks about the animals that live in the ocean (which he knows about from other books and from visiting the aquarium). It's a great way for him to remember his one brief trip to the beach, which probably won't be repeated for another year or so. This book is lots of fun, and very nice to look at.

A Chair for My Mother

A Chair for My Mother is a wonderful story about the importance of work, savings, and family. I remember this book from when I was a child, and it was featured on Reading Rainbow, but judging by the number of Amazon reviews, it's not too widely known. If this is your first introduction to it, you are in for a real treat.

The book is narrated by a young girl who lives with her mother and grandmother. About a year ago, their house burned down. Everyone was safe (even the cat!), but all of their possessions were completely destroyed. The mother works as a waitress, so the family doesn't have very much money. They move into a new apartment, and their extended family and neighbors all pitch in to donate furniture and other necessary items. But there is not a big, comfy chair for them to relax in. So the mother brings home a huge glass jar from the restaurant, and they save up their coins until they have enough to buy the perfect chair.

The story is told somewhat out of order, beginning with working at the diner, moving through how they save up the coins, taking a flashback to tell the reader about the fire and moving into the new apartment, then culminating with filling up the jar, shopping for a new chair, and bringing it home to enjoy. This structure adds a lot of interest compared to the straightforward narrative arc of most picture books. It means the story is a bit more complex to follow, but I don't think Charlie had much trouble grasping that we were moving back and forward in time.

This is an incredibly useful book for introducing children to two major economic concepts: the importance of work for earning money, and saving and spending.

Work enters the book on page one. The opening line is about work ("My mother works as a  waitress in the Blue Tile Diner."), and by the end of the first paragraph, the little girl has a job, too. She visits her mother at the diner after school, and the owner pays her to do small tasks like refilling ketchup bottles. The girl clearly takes pride in her work and in her ability to earn money to spend herself and to contribute to her family's finances.

Work is fulfilling and necessary, but it's also exhausting. When mama comes home from work, "[s]ometimes she's so tired she falls asleep while I count the money out into piles." And making ends meet is not easy. When there are not many tips, mama "looks worried." Grandma apparently does not work, but she's responsible for the shopping in the family, and is always looking for "a good bargain on tomatoes or bananas or something she buys." Life is not all just candy and roses in this book. I really like the way the budgeting issues are presented. They are clearly there, but the book doesn't beat you over the head with them. This is a family that is not exactly struggling to make ends meet, but that has to stick to a pretty strict budget. They're not lacking for food or clothing or other necessities of life, but they've suffered a setback and they don't have much extra to go around. Nobody whines and cries over not being able to have the newest shiny toy, but working, earning money, and saving are central to this family's life.

The family has a clear savings plan for this concrete goal of buying a comfortable chair. The little girl always puts half of her earnings into the jar. Mama puts all the change from tips into the jar, presumably because her salary goes to providing necessities. And grandma puts the savings from her shopping trip into the jar as well. Charlie is too young yet to understand the value of money (he likes to use a shiny coin to buy pretend train tickets, but that's about it). For an older kid, this would be a great illustration of not only budgeting and saving, but also setting goals, making plans to achieve them, and  following through.

When the jar is full, nobody can quite believe it. They set out, first for the bank to change the coins into bills, and then out to the stores to shop for a chair. Having saved up for an entire year to buy this chair, they will not settle for anything but the best. They search and search until they find the perfect chair that they all love. The achievement of this goal is something to celebrate, so they take a picture of the three of them sitting together in the chair. Most importantly, they chose a goal that was truly a value to all of them. The last page of the book explains how the chair materially enhances their lives: "Now Grandma sits in it and talks with people going by in the daytime. Mama sits down and watches the news on TV when she comes home from her job. After supper, I sit with her and she can reach right up and turn out the light if I fall asleep in her lap." This is not a whim or a waste of money. This is a real value they have worked hard to add to their lives and will appreciate for a long time.

The portion of the book dealing with the fire and its aftermath is also rich with values. First, the family has its priorities straight: check to make sure that all the people are safe, and then the cat. There's no mourning for the lost physical possessions here, interestingly. Instead, there's a sadness that the rooms of their new apartment are empty. The book doesn't say so explicitly, but it seems to convey the idea that physical things are just things. They're replaceable. We might miss them, but generally we can get new ones. "[W]e're young and can start all over," as the grandmother puts it.

This family is struggling financially, though, and not able to buy everything new all at once. Fortunately, they live in a loving community made up not only of extended family, but also friendly and generous neighbors. When they move in to the new place, their friends and family bring everything from furniture to dishes to toys to curtains to pizza. This outpouring of benevolence is especially touching because it is unforced. The people in the community are reaching out because they care about their neighbors and are able to help.

The illustrations are rich with color, but in my opinion, somewhat simplistic. I was surprised to find that this is a Caldecott Honor Book, because the illustrations didn't really do much for me. I think the rich, complex, value-laden story is the true appeal of this book.

Wow, It's a Cow!

We had a lot of fun with Wow, It's A Cow! in the 18-months to 2-years range. It's a cute little book, but I wouldn't advise anyone to rush out and buy it. There's nothing particularly special about it. This is just a fun little romp that's easily interchangeable with a bunch of other, similar books.

Still, Charlie really enjoyed this one for several months. It seemed to have a lot of staying power for him. The story is about a farmer looking for his cow. He comes across lots of animals, but they are not the cow. Finally, on the last page, he finds the cow in the barn.

The amusement factor in the book is that on each page, the cow is drawn doing what some other animal does, and then you lift the flap and it shows the actual animal underneath. So the cow gets to pull a plow (horse), swim in the pond (duck), and perch on a tree branch (bird), among other things. Charlie always liked to lift the flap and announce the animal that was actually doing those things.

The book is also written in rhyme. "If it goes 'Neigh, neigh,' / And it's pulling a plow, / It's not a cow! / Of course, / It's a . . . horse!" These are relatively cute but uninteresting from an adult's perspective (except that I always wanted to rhyme a certain swear word with "duck" ...). The illustrations, too, are cute but nothing special.

It's a cute book for learning about animals, their sounds, and their jobs or characteristics. It's also fun as a lift-the-flap book and general entertainment. But it's not great literature.

Have You Seen Birds?

I do a lot of my children's book shopping at garage sales, so I am frequently dismayed to discover that some of my favorite second-hand finds are out of print. Thank goodness for used sales on Amazon, where you can find a copy of just about anything, because Have You Seen Birds? is just awesome. The premise is simple: A cat looks out the window longingly, describing all the different types of birds she likes to watch.

Since so many kids' books are written in rhyme, I've been thinking about when I should use the "poetry" tag on my posts and when not. I've decided it should be reserved for poems with some level of literary merit, and this book fits the bill. The text is a treasure trove of complex and hyphenated adjectives strung into a fun rhythm that reminds me a little bit of The Song of Hiawatha. Let me give you a taste:

Have you seen birds?
Long-legged tall birds,
tiny bug-sized small birds,
brightly breasted,
gaily crested,
meadow tan or fancy fan.
Have you seen birds?

. . .

Have you heard town birds?
Rapping-at-the-bark birds,
Cooing-in-the-park birds,
quarreling-in-a-rage birds,
tweeting-in-a-cage birds,
squealing, squawking,
screeching, talking.
Have you heard birds?

. . .

Look up -- see the sky birds,
flying-way-up-high birds,
racing-up-to-space birds,
wind-wheeling,
freedom-feeling,
diving, dipping, gliding, tipping.
Have you seen birds?

Okay, that was probably too much to quote, but I just love it so much!

The illustrations are also very interesting. They're all done with clay models, like a claymation movie. The detail is amazing, with individual feathers and little texture grooves carved in. Background details appear as well, not just the birds themselves. There are plants with flowers and berries growing, worms, insects, gardening implements, individual twigs in a nest, even snowflakes and flecks of foam on the waves.

There's no moral lesson here or anything, just a catalog of all the detailed variety of this one particular aspect of nature. Nevertheless, it's one of my absolute  favorites.

Puff, the Magic Dragon

The beauty of this picture book version of Puff, the Magic Dragon perfectly matches the beauty of the original song by Peter, Paul, and Mary. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. The book comes packaged together with a CD of the song performed by Peter and his daughter Bethany, but I can't tell you anything about the recording because I bought this book used and the CD was not included.

The song has always made me cry a little bit, and this book did the same. As I've mentioned before, I'm a sucker for growing-up or cycle-of-life stories, and this certainly is one. Jackie has so much fun with Puff, and then grows up and stops playing with him. This book adds a happy ending to the story, though. The words are the same as in the song, but on the final chorus, the illustrations show a new little girl coming to play with Puff. The last page reveals a grown-up Jackie Paper peeking in on the scene, implying that the girl is his daughter.

The illustrations in this book are unbelievably beautiful. The front cover image really does not do justice to the illustrations, and Amazon doesn't have a look-inside feature for this book, so you'll have to take my word for it. They are stunning. The inside covers show maps of the land of Honalee. The pages are gorgeous fantasy paintings that combine realistic and fantastical elements to create the effect that you're truly seeing inside Jackie's imagination. There are many details and hidden elements throughout: fairies, buildings in the distance, rocks that look like faces. I haven't read the book enough times to notice even half of them, I'm sure.

This is quite a sad story, with a deep friendship breaking up as Jackie grows older, and I was a little bit concerned about presenting it to Charlie. And indeed, Charlie was upset when we first read it. He kept asking me why Jackie and Puff are not friends any more. We talked about it at length, discussing how Jackie grew up and dragons are friends with little kids, not grown-ups. I pointed out the little girl who comes to be Puff's new friend, and explained that Jackie is her dad. I don't think Charlie understands exactly what's going on, but he's not traumatized by it. He likes to point out the little girl's dad hiding behind the tree, but I don't think he makes the connection yet that the dad is Jackie as a grown-up. Still, Charlie requests the book frequently and loves the pictures and the song, and he will certainly grow into it.

I adore this book. It's very emotional for me, so it's difficult to explain exactly what I love about it so much. The story is sad yet sweet, the pictures are beautiful, and the song is a folk classic, but together these elements add up to something even more.

Good Dog, Carl

Good Dog, Carl is yet another one of our nearly-wordless friends. It's about a mother who goes out to run some errands, leaving her baby in the care of a large black pet dog, Carl, while she's gone. Carl and the baby get in all kinds of exciting but messy adventures around the house, but Carl cleans everything up and puts the baby back to bed before the mother gets home, so she is none the wiser.

The illustrations in this book are very realistic drawings, but often two scenes, or a before-and-after, are shown on the same page without any lines in between. I've noticed that this is rather confusing to Charlie, thinking that there are two dogs or two babies instead of understanding the time-lapse. That's exactly why Montessori advocates a single picture on each page at this age. Still, this is an interpretive skill that kids need to learn, and a wordless book invites lots of discussion, so I haven't found it to be too much of a problem.

Charlie enjoys narrating this book to me, much more so than his other wordless books. I'm not sure whether that's something inherent in the story, perhaps it's more familiar or easier to follow, or whether it's just that I introduced this book at a slightly older age than our other wordless books, so he has more ability and less history of being read to from this book. This is generally a fun book, but not one of our all-time favorites.

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is one of those books that's so famous it's even written about in other famous books. (Anyone remember Ramona Quimby asking her teacher, in Ramona the Pest, how Mike Mulligan took bathroom breaks?) Since everyone surely already knows this book, why am I writing about it? Because it has really excellent economic and ethical lessons that deserve attention.

Here's the basic recap: Mike Mulligan is a steam shovel operator who owns his own steam shovel, named Mary Anne. They have worked together for many years on big, important projects. But times have changed, and now all of the major projects in the cities are being done by gasoline, electric, and Diesel shovels, not the outdated steam shovels. Most steam shovels are being sold for scrap, but Mike can't face doing that to his beloved Mary Anne. Then one day Mike hears that the small town of Popperville is going to build a new city hall, so he and Mary Anne drive out there and offer to dig the cellar, promising that the work will be free if they can't complete it in a single day. One by one, the residents of Popperville turn out to watch, followed by the residents of other towns. All of the spectators motivate Mike and Mary Anne to work very fast, and they complete their job in just one day. But they've forgotten to leave a ramp to drive Mary Anne out of the cellar! After some discussion, everyone agrees to let Mary Anne stay in the cellar, where she will become the furnace for the new town hall, and Mike is hired as the janitor.

This book can be read as having an anti-development bias. It displays a certain amount of sadness for the technological changes that have made steam shovels obsolete. But there is plenty to counter this, unlike in, for instance, The Little House, another Virginia Lee Burton book with a very strong nostalgia for old-fashioned country living. The first few pages of Mike Mulligan are aglow with praise for technological and economic developments. Mike and Mary Anne are proud of their work digging canals, cutting paths for new roads and railroads, smoothing out landing fields for airplanes, and digging cellars for skyscrapers in the cities. The only technological development they seem to dislike is the one that puts them out of work--the invention of better digging technology.

Perhaps Mike's affection for Mary Anne led him to make some poor economic choices. He could have invested in a diesel shovel instead of taking "such good care of Mary Anne she never grew old." But it can also make good economic sense to keep your capital equipment in good working order as long as possible. This being a children's story book instead of a corporate balance sheet, we don't have the necessary information to decide whether Mike made the right choices or not. But this makes a great discussion topic as your kids get older. And little kids can relate in the right context, too: should we repair this toy or buy a new, upgraded model?

Mike and Mary Anne embody the value of productive work. They are extremely proud of all the work they have done on important development projects. When they are replaced by newer equipment and can no longer find work, "Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne were VERY SAD." (In all caps, no less!) There's nothing worse than being unemployed and useless. Their solution is not to give up, but to prove how useful they can be in the right context. They head out to the small town of Popperville, where it doesn't make economic sense to hire a big diesel shovel, but a steam shovel can still be very useful. They like other people to appreciate their work, too. When they know they are being useful and entertaining to spectators, they work even harder and faster.

The solution reached at the end of the book is pretty much perfect. Even if Mike hadn't forgotten to leave a ramp out of the cellar, turning Mary Anne into a furnace might well be the best economic solution out there. There can't be too many places like Popperville left for very long--economic development will continue to spread from big projects to small ones--and traveling between far-flung little towns with a day's work in each is not likely to be economically viable for Mike and Mary Anne. If Mary Anne can function efficiently as a heating unit, why not? It provides steady, useful work. Mike and Mary Anne are both thrilled with the situation; nobody treats it as a demotion (though perhaps it's a form of semi-retirement, sitting around with visitors telling stories and eating pie every day). Certainly it is much more productive than what other steam shovel operators did, scrapping their machines or leaving them to rust. Mary Anne goes on to have another whole phase of productive life because she was so well kept up by her operator. Mike gets to continue working with Mary Anne, clearly important to him, instead of having to give her up for a different machine. The solution is not only efficient, it also makes everyone happy.

Overall, I think the theme of this book is not nostalgia and anti-development. It's finding a productive niche for yourself given your capacities and limits. Not all of us can be CEOs of Fortune 500 corporations. Maybe we don't have the skills or capacity, or maybe we have other values, like family or leisure, that make other paths better for us. This book is about finding the work you can do, taking pride in it, and finding a situation that gives you the best life possible.

Blue Hat, Green Hat

There's not too much I can say about Blue Hat, Green Hat. We have enjoyed many of the Sandra Boynton board books since Charlie was a little baby, but they're just so simple that there's not much to say. Don't let the simplicity fool you, though. Boynton's books are excellent for babies and very young toddlers.

I chose Blue Hat, Green Hat to review today because it's enjoying a resurgence of popularity in the eyes of two-and-a-half-year-old Charlie. The story is extremely simple: A series of animals get dressed, one piece of clothing at a time, but the turkey always manages to put his clothes on wrong. Hat on his feet, socks on his hands, coat on backwards, that kind of thing. The only words are the color and name of each item of clothing, and then the word "oops" under the turkey each time. It's up to the parent and child to point out and explain what went wrong for the turkey.

This is a great book for learning colors and the names of items of clothing, but Charlie has those down like the back of his hand at this point. The reason he's interested in it again is that he can dress himself now and he just loves pointing out the turkey's mistakes and explaining what he should have done instead. Additionally, the words are so simple that Charlie can "read" the entire book himself. That is, there are no words other than what he can easily observe from the pictures and say out loud.  No parental involvement necessary! (Though he still likes to read it together with me.) I'm glad to see that this book has a bit of staying power past the infant stage.

Sunrise, Sunset

We received Sunrise, Sunset from PJ Library, an organization that provides free books to Jewish kids. I would wholeheartedly recommend PJ Library to anyone raising their kids in the Jewish religion. I recommend it with reservations to people like me, who want their kids to have a cultural connection to Judaism without pushing the religion aspect. PJ sends out one book or CD per month. We signed up for the baby level (under two years old), and over the course of the year, there were two books that I refused to give to Charlie because of religious or mystical content. The rest were straightforward explanations of Jewish holidays that we read but didn't love.

Sunrise, Sunset was one of the first books we got from PJ after graduating to the 2-3 year age group, and it's certainly my favorite book from them so far. It's the story of Motel and Tzeitel from Fiddler on the Roof, told in pictures accompanied by the words of the song Sunrise, Sunset. I am a sucker for happy cycle-of-life stories, and this one totally made me cry.

The religious content of this book is subtle and almost non-existent. There's nothing about religious beliefs or anything in the text. All of the characters are shown wearing religious dress, namely head coverings and tzit tzit. The Jewish wedding ceremony is shown and briefly described. One page appears to depict the discarding of bread before Passover, but it's not explained. All of these are elements that I want my kids to know about, and I like that they are presented mainly in the background to discuss but not as part of the actual story.

The illustrations are colorful and very expressive, and the characters are drawn to look very similar to the actors in the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof. Motel and Tzeitel are shown as children and then as young adults falling in love, then after their marriage Tzeitel is shown pregnant and then the couple with their new baby. Other elements in the illustrations also show the passage of time (A white kitten becomes old and fat. Tzeitel's parents appear to get older as well.). There is also a theme of sunflowers on almost every page, taken from the lyric, "Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers, blossoming even as we gaze."

The words of the song are just as they appear in the movie or play, so they will be quite familiar. It's a sweet reflection on the passage of time and how quickly children grow up. The final page of the book prints the sheet music to the song, so you can play or sing along.

I probably would not have paid money for this book, since it's essentially the same content one could get from the movie. But I'm glad we have it. It would have been nice to take out of the library, I think. It makes the story accessible to a much younger child than the movie would be appropriate for. Charlie has certainly enjoyed reading it.

One to Ten and Back Again

We've been working on counting a lot lately, and one of our fun counting books is One to Ten and Back Again. This is a board book with two special gimmicks. First, there are ribbons that are strung through the book, with one new ribbon appearing on each page. Second, each page has text written right-side-up and upside-down. The last page instructs you to turn the book over and read the opposite side. The very minimal story is that insects and other small animals all come to sit on a big flower (one bee, two butterflies, three grasshoppers, etc.), and then when you flip the book over, they all leave, one set at a time.

Both of these gimmicks work really well. The ribbons make a very fun swooshing noise when the pages are turned. The ribbons are actually integral to the book, since the animals you're counting appear on the ribbons.


Turning the book upside-down is very exciting to a toddler. It also allows the book to lead you through counting both up and down without having twice as many pages. The design of the book actually makes it very easy to read without getting confused. In fact, the first time I picked it up in the store, I didn't even realize that it had this upside-down feature! (To be fair, I was distracted by keeping Charlie entertained while I shopped.) All of the text to read is written on the right-hand page for the direction you're holding it, so your eye naturally is drawn there. In addition, the upside-down pages have a black background while the right-side-up ones have a white background. This means that you don't even really notice the black background pages while you're reading it the first way, and then when you turn it upside-down, you are already on alert.

My only complaint here is that the slots in the pages for the ribbons to go through weaken the structural integrity of the pages, so it's easier to bend and crease the pages than in an ordinary board book. So far, the creases haven't prevented the pages from turning properly, though.

The illustrations are pretty cute, too. The black and white background serves to highlight the brightly colored flower and insects. As the creatures pile on to the flower, it starts to bend over, ending up pretty smushed by page 10. Then as you count back down to 1 in the upside-down part, the flower gradually stands back up. There's also a little preview on each right-side-up page--the bottom right corner lets you know which animal is coming next.

Oh, and perhaps this counts as a third gimmick--there's a cutout running all the way through one side of the book that serves as a handle. Even a very little kid can hold this book easily in one hand, making it very portable for restaurants or waiting rooms.

The Day the Babies Crawled Away

When I first read The Day the Babies Crawled Away, I thought the pictures were stunning but the text was pretty lame. Apparently, I am not a two-year-old, because the moment Charlie first heard it read to him, he was enthralled. And after just a couple of readings, it began to grow on me. This is nowhere near great literature, but it's not annoying or boring, either. And the pictures definitely make up for it.

The pictures! All of the characters, scenery, and details are done in black silhouette, intricately detailed. There are many details to notice--butterflies, bees, blackberries on a bush, caterpillars--all pure black silhouettes. What really grabs you, though, are the luminous backgrounds. All the jeweled colors of the sky appear, subtly different page after page, giving the feeling that the entire book is happening at sunset even though we see the tones slowly change from day to evening over the course of the story. The book is just gorgeous to look at.

The story is pretty cute. The adults aren't paying attention one day, and the babies all crawl away. The only person who notices is a very young boy wearing a fireman's hat. He chases after the babies, trying to get them to come back. The babies crawl through forests and caves, take rides on birds, and end up at the bottom of a cliff before the boy catches up with them. He then takes over a parental role, finding them food and serving as a pillow for their nap, before leading them back home to their grateful parents. Nice and free-range: The babies get along reasonably well without their parents, and it's a little kid who steps up, takes responsibility, and successfully brings them home.

So, what is it about the text? I think it's a bit choppy in parts ("I say! What a day / When the babies crawled away.") and not very interesting. Charlie, on the other hand, found it immediately compelling for two reasons. The most important thing is that the book is written in second person, putting the child-reader in the role of the little boy saving the day ("Remember the way / You tried to save the day? / You hollered, 'HEY! / You babies, STAY!'"). Charlie becomes very excited, pointing to the silhouette of the boy and announcing, "That's me! That's Charlie!" and sometimes repeating the little boy's lines of dialogue. The repeated use of the word "remember" draws the child into the story even further, framing the whole thing as a retold story that happened to him personally just the other day.

The other thing Charlie loves about the text are all the exclamatory phrases he can add to his vocabulary: I say! What a day! Nice play! Okay! Hey, hey! He picked these up much faster than I expected.

The upshot is, I was skeptical at first, but this is definitely a worthy addition to our library.

The Train to Glasgow

The Train to Glasgow is a new (2004) picture book of an old (1954) poem that is a recent favorite of Charlie's. It is a cumulative poem in the style of The House that Jack Built, or There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, or, for that matter, Green Eggs and Ham, which is another of our favorites. The poem has a bit of substantial variation; that is, the lines change a bit as new things are added, and the last verse is completely different.

The story is about a boy named Donald, maybe around ten years old, who almost misses the train from Donibristle to Glasgow. The guard grabs his hands and yanks him into the train as it is leaving the station. But then a cage full of chickens falls over and the chickens escape and begin running around the train. Donald gathers them back up for the guard, who is so pleased that he invites Donald to have tea with him and his wife.

The illustrations provide the opportunity to anticipate what is going to happen next, at least once you've read the book through a few times. As the guard blows the whistle to start the train, for instance, you can see Donald in the background, running across a bridge, trying to catch the train. As the guard yanks Donald into the train, a corner of the cage of chickens is visible just beside him. When the chickens get out of their cage, you see them running toward the passengers they'll be stepping on top of on the next page.

The main attraction of this book, though, is the poem, which is very cute and not boring. Charlie has started to recite it along with me as I read the book, something he rarely does with other books. Oh, and the train. Everyone loves a good train.

This is also a great free range book. This boy is traveling alone on a train between two cities which, Google Maps tells me, are about 50 miles apart. He doesn't even have an adult bring him to the station! Once on the train, he saves the day by rounding up the chickens. And then at the end, he is allowed to go to tea, again without any parents, with this man and woman he's apparently never met before. This kid is capable, independent, trusting, and friendly--all excellent qualities.

I Am a Backhoe

The hilariously-named I Am a Backhoe has been the source of more than one joke among the adults in our household (see, e.g., the second item that showed up when I searched Amazon for the title, T-Shirt Men's Black "KISS ME, I AM AN [sic] BACKHOE OPERATOR"). But in my view, that just adds to the fun.

This one is great for a younger truck-obsessed kid. Charlie enjoyed it most in the 18-month to 2-years range, though he still likes reading it on occasion. The story is simple: a little boy pretends to be various trucks, one at a time. He describes and acts out what the truck does ("I dig my hand into the sand, my scooper hand."), including some good action words ("Dig. Dig. Dig. Lift, turn, tip.") and then you turn the page to reveal what truck he is. On the last pages, his father shows up, pretending to be a flatbed truck, and gives the little boy a ride on his back. Then they sit down on the couch together and read a book about trucks.

The drawings of the people and trucks are very realistic, and the backgrounds are simply gently-shaded bright colors. The front and back inside covers have close-ups of parts of the various trucks from the book, so you can use that page to play a vocabulary game, as well as color identification. There's not too much of interest for parents here (aside from the title), but Charlie always enjoyed it a lot.

Just a Little Critter Collection

There are approximately nine million books in the "Little Critter" series, and I readily admit, I have not read them all. The ones I have read range from fantastic to very boring. That's why I was pleased to discover Just a Little Critter Collection, a hardcover collection of seven really excellent Little Critter stories. There is no hit-or-miss here. Every single one in the book is great.

Most of this review discusses the stories, but before I launch into that, I want to mention the totally cute illustrations for a moment.  These are not great works of art or anything, but they are adorable and interesting. There are many background details to discover, particularly a spider, cricket, and mouse that follow Little Critter around to many places. The facial expressions on the parents and kids are also priceless.

Each of these stories is also available as an individual paperback. The included stories are:

• Just for You
• When I Get Bigger
• I Was So Mad
• All by Myself
• Just Go to Bed
• Just a Mess
• I Just Forgot

One of the major overriding themes of these stories is a free-range childhood. The main character, who I guess is the Little Critter himself, is probably around four or five years old (old enough to have a little sister who is a kid, not a baby), but his parents give him a huge amount of freedom and responsibility. In Just for You alone, his mother lets him cook eggs, mop the floor, put away the dishes, carry the groceries home from the store, mow the lawn (with an old-style mechanical mower), and set the table for dinner. In every picture, the mother is in the background, looking on, encouraging Little Critter to do things on his own. When he messes things up, which he does repeatedly, she is clearly aggravated but always kind and helpful. This is also the main story of the rather obviously-titled All By Myself.

Despite his age-appropriate freedom, Little Critter has clear rules and limits imposed by his parents. When I Get Bigger is about his fantasies of the exciting things he'll do when those limits are removed. All of them are very reasonable things that bigger kids can do ("I'll go to the corner store by myself."), or at least could back in the 1970s ("I'll have a two-wheeler and a paper route. I'll make lots of money.").

Combining both free range philosophy and good parental limits, I Was So Mad describes what happens one day when Little Critter was prevented from doing a series of activities he wanted to do (putting frogs in the bathtub, climbing inside his sister's dollhouse, painting the exterior walls of the house, and juggling eggs, among other things), and decided that he was so mad he would run away. His parents look on in quiet amusement as he packs his wagon full of toys and cookies and heads out the door. But right outside, he runs into his friends and decides to go play baseball with them instead of running away.

The two ideas also intermingle in the last story in the book, which is my favorite, I Just Forgot. Parents sometimes have trouble understanding exactly how many things a kid has to learn and remember. Things that are second-nature to us--like turning off the bath water when we are done!--are just one more habit that a kid is in the process of forming. Little Critter is doing his best to remember all the things he needs to do, but he only gets about half of them right. The writing in this story is just adorable and captures a little kid's voice perfectly. Some of the things are presented straightforwardly ("I put my dishes in the sink after breakfast, but  I forgot to put the milk away."), and others are almost laugh-out-loud funny ("I didn't forget to feed the goldfish. He just didn't look hungry. I'll do it now, Mom.").

I can totally relate to Little Critter's parents. They rarely say anything in these stories, but their facial expressions and body language always mirror exactly what I'd be feeling if my kid did whatever it is that Little Critter is doing just then. They are by turns proud, amused, frustrated, angry, worried, annoyed, and loving. But they generally stay in the background, letting Little Critter work out his problems for himself. This is most evident in Just a Mess, when Little Critter can't find his baseball mitt and his mother suggests that maybe he'll find it if he cleans his unbelievably cluttered room. She refuses to help, commenting, "You made the mess, so you can clean up the mess." You go, Mom Critter! In the whole story, she only intervenes to prevent Little Critter from washing his bedroom floor with the garden hose.

And parents are not perfect. I completely identify with Dad Critter as he gets increasingly annoyed with Little Critter's refusal to cooperate with the bedtime routine and ends up shouting "Just go to bed!"

Yet the love always shines through in these books. No matter how frustrated and annoyed the parents and child get with each other, there is always a tender moment. You just know that this is a strong, close-knit family. To a parent, one message of this book is that kids can be aggravating as heck, but they are still awesome. To a kid, the message is that parents can be aggravating as heck, but they are still awesome. Capturing both of those messages at once is, in my opinion, brilliant.

Life-Size Aquarium and More Life-Size Zoo

This is just a brief update. In my post about Life-Size Zoo a few days ago, I mentioned the two sequels I had just discovered, More Life-Size Zoo and Life-Size Aquarium. These arrived from Amazon, and I want to report that: (1) these are just as awesome as the original, but (2) I would recommend them for a somewhat older age group.

Charlie loves the original Life-Size Zoo at under two and a half years old. Life-Size Aquarium scared him, and he ran away crying after seeing a few pages. Sea creatures just look weird, even the friendly ones like dolphins. More Life-Size Zoo isn't scary, but the fold-out pages are more extensive and I'm worried about the book getting damaged until he's able to handle it a bit more carefully. So these will go back on the shelf for at least six months, and probably more.

Nonetheless, the pictures are just as exciting as the original. I enjoyed looking through them myself, and I would certainly recommend these for 3- or 4-year olds.

Outside, Inside

Outside, Inside is a gem of a book, and sadly, out of print. Used copies are available on Amazon. I picked mine up at a garage sale, where I was told that it had been a favorite book in the seller's household when her kids were younger. Charlie enjoys it as well.

The book is about a thunderstorm that lasts a whole morning. One sentence and accompanying illustration describe what is happening outside, and the next sentence and illustration describe what is happening indoors in a little girl's house at the same time. The text is highly evocative of the sounds, textures, sights, even smells associated with a rainstorm and a day spent indoors. ("Outside, the rain spills from the clouds, shussh-wissh, shussh-wissh, shussh-wish. Inside, the clock ticks in the hall, tink-tunk, tink-tunk, tink-tunk. Outside, puddles bubble and churn with the falling rain. Inside, maple syrup slips down a pancake mountain.")

The illustrations are made of cut-paper and are very neat to look at. They feel both simple and complex at the same time -- simple in their use of few colors per item, but complex in the intricacy of the shapes that have been created. A number of animals make an appearance also--a cat inside, birds, frogs, and rabbits outside.

The entire book has a quiet, peaceful, natural, uplifting feel to it. The story is told with a minimum of words, and largely implied. This contributes to the quiet atmosphere that is created when reading it. The girl is not bored or unhappy that it's raining and she's stuck inside for the day. She simply finds indoor ways to amuse herself (playing marbles, baking cookies). When the storm ends, she is also happy to open the door and breathe the fresh air. I love books that can create a mood for their readers, and this book certainly does that.

The Gruffalo

The Gruffalo (I've linked to the board book edition, which we own, but it's also available in paperback) is a cute little story about a mouse who keeps himself from being eaten by other animals in the forest, using his own cleverness. Whenever an animal wants to eat him, he scares them off by claiming that he's about to be joined by a scary monster called a gruffalo. This works great until the gruffalo turns out to be real, not imaginary, and also threatens to eat the mouse. But then the mouse parades back with the gruffalo to all the creatures he talked his way away from before. Each one looks at the gruffalo and runs away immediately. The gruffalo is convinced that they are actually afraid of the mouse, and runs away, leaving the mouse in peace. I'm almost certain that this is some kind of familiar folk tale, but I can't put my finger on what the original version was.

The book is written in very clever and nicely-flowing verse. So nice, in fact, that I'm going to reproduce the entire first animal encounter here so you can read it:

A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood.
A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good.
"Where are you going to, little brown mouse?
Come and have lunch in my underground house."
"It's terribly kind of you, Fox, but no--
I'm going to have lunch with a gruffalo.
"A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?"
"A gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?"
"He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws,
And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws."
"Where are you meeting him?"
"Here, by these rocks,
And his favourite food is roasted fox."
"Roasted fox! I'm off!" Fox said.
"Goodbye, little mouse," and away he sped.
"Silly old Fox! Doesn't he know,
There's no such thing as a gruffalo?"

What I like most about this book is the subtlety and politeness of the text. The fox doesn't come in growling, "I'm going to eat you up!" and the mouse doesn't say, "No way, my friend the gruffalo is going to come and eat you up instead!" It's all very genteel and implied. Not only does this make for a more fun book, it also brings in more parent-child conversation about the book, if your kid is too young to make these connections on his or her own.

The illustrations are nothing particularly special. They're nice enough, and the gruffalo is drawn such that it is more silly than scary. There are a few details to find in the backgrounds--birds, butterflies, mushrooms, but nothing major is of note here.

One possible objection to this book is that the mouse gets himself out of his predicament through lying, a strategy we shouldn't glorify to our children. But it is morally proper to lie to protect your values, and your life, from criminals who would do you harm. So this really just becomes an opportunity to discuss the ethics of a difficult situation with your children. It's also quite a clever solution for the mouse to come up with, so we can respect him for his creativity and quick thinking.

The author, Julia Donaldson, is apparently quite well known in the U.K. for writing a large number of popular children's books. I haven't read any of the others, but I did want to point out that there's a direct sequel to The Gruffalo, called The Gruffalo's Child, which apparently involves the gruffalo telling his child about the very scary mouse he once met in the forest. I'm also kind of in awe of anyone who can get an entire professional website and Christmas TV special (sadly, not available for the U.S. market) made from just two books. That is some impressive marketing!

Life-Size Zoo

Ever wondered exactly how big a koala is? Sure, you can go and see one at the zoo, but it's likely to be pretty far away and might be hiding or sleeping when you're there. For an up-close look, check out Life-Size Zoo: From Tiny Rodents to Gigantic Elephants, An Actual Size Animal Encyclopedia.

This book is a show-stopper. When they say life-size, they are not kidding. The book itself is gigantic, more than 14 inches by 10 inches, which is larger than any other book we own, including the large I Spy books you may be familiar with (post on that series forthcoming). Each page shows a photograph of a single animal in actual life size. Some are small enough to fit on a single two-page spread, like the aforementioned koala. Others feature just the head (panda, tiger). Still others have a full four-page foldout to showcase just the head (giraffe with her tongue sticking out).

The detail you can see in photographs this big is stunning. You can see gradations of color in a gorilla's fur, tiny spots on an aardvark's face, and the wrinkles around an elephant's eye. Detail-lovers will enjoy this book more than most.

The book includes a few facts about each species that is featured, and about the individual animal that is photographed. Our giraffe, for example, is a 6-year-old female named Lulu. The scientific name is listed, a few features of the photograph are pointed out in sidebar text, and some fun facts are listed as well ("Giraffes can gallop up to 35 miles an hour."). But the focus of this book is clearly on the pictures, not the textual information.

My only gripe about this book is the limited number of animals featured. There are only twenty. I wish they'd added a few more pages. Instead, they've gone the sequel route: I've just discovered More Life-Size Zoo: An All-New Actual-Size Animal Encyclopedia and Life-Size Aquarium on Amazon, and I'm ordering them right now!

Good Night, Gorilla

Good Night, Gorilla is an adorable little nearly-wordless book. A zookeeper walks through the zoo at night, saying goodnight to all the animals. ("Good night, [animal name]" are the only printed words.) Unbeknownst to him, the gorilla has stolen his keys, slipped out of his cage, and followed him around, letting out each animal after he says goodnight. The animals all follow the zookeeper home and curl up for the night in his bedroom. But the zookeeper's wife notices, and leads them all back to the zoo... except for the sneaky gorilla.

I think this was the first wordless book we got. I picked it up at a garage sale, and Charlie immediately fell in love with it, setting off a major phase of obsession with gorillas and monkeys. I'm not kidding when I say we probably read this fifteen times a day at one point.

I originally assumed that this story was decades old, for a couple of reasons. The style of drawing looks very classic 1950s, the house (and the wife in a nightgown and cap) also look very old-fashioned, and the zoo animals are kept in old-fashioned cages with bars, not at all like a modern zoo. But it turns out that it was written in 1994 and just stylized to look like the past. In any case, I will readily call this a modern classic.

The story has the potential to be very boring for adults, since it's repetitive and the illustration style is fine but not particularly gorgeous. But actually, there are a lot of "visual jokes" that you won't spot on the first (or third, or fifth) reading but that you'll notice in the background later. Just to give one example of the kind of thing I'm talking about, since I don't want to spoil it for you, the elephant has a Babar doll lying on the floor of his cage. Things like that. I always managed to notice a new one right when I was at the point of extreme aggravation at having to read the book "one more time" for Charlie.

Cute story, obsessive interest from child, and interest thrown in for the parents -- that all adds up to my highest recommendation.

My Little Word Book

Our copy of My Little Word Book is tattered and held together with clear packing tape, despite being a board book. This is because Charlie slept with it in his bed from when he was about 9 months to when he was about 18 months, and we read it every night (not to mention in the daytime as well). It's your standard word book, with a photograph of something and its name written below, but extremely well done.

Montessori prefers the one-item-on-a-page style of word book, but that format is limiting for the simple reason that you can only have a certain number of items before you run out of pages. This book has between five and twelve items on each page. Most pages separate each item into its own box (as shown on the cover), but a few pages (flowers, vegetables, actions) are in a more freeflowing, overlapping format). Even on the item-in-a-box pages, at least one item takes up two or more squares. So, for example, on the toys page, the doll is two squares tall and the train is two squares long. This adds some visual interest and makes the book a bit more fun to look through.

What I really love about this book is how each two-page spread shows a category of items. First is body parts and people (boy, girl, man, woman).Next is actions (walk, sing, dance, kick). Next is clothing, then household items (clock, sofa, cup, computer). Next come toys, then food, then flowers and other outdoor items (tree, fence, frog). There's a vehicles page, then farm animals, then pets and birds, then wild animals (from squirrel to camel to tiger). The page labeled "our world" combines pictures of the sun and moon, a street scene, and a park on one page, with things like jungle, farmland, and beach on the opposite page. The last page is colors and shapes.

Charlie would go through phases where he was interested in particular pages/categories and ignored others. It was fascinating for me to watch him enthralled by the parts of the body one month, then skipping that page and heading right to vehicles day after day the next month. It allowed me to easily figure out what his little brain was focusing on, and then to enhance that focus by talking about it and bringing out other books on the same subject while he was most interested.

During his animal phase, Charlie also very much enjoyed My Little Animal Book, in the same series. It's the same size, shape, and style as the Word book, but obviously, focusing entirely on animals. The animals are categorized on pages for different types: farm, pets, African, jungle, ocean, forests, polar, rivers and lakes, reptiles and amphibians, bugs, birds, and Australian. The last three pages offer interactive activities that are not found in the Word book: match moms to babies, match patterns to animals, and counting.

Both of these books get my absolute highest recommendation for the under-18-months crowd.

The Little Engine That Could

Charlie received The Little Engine That Could as a present from a relative about a month ago, and he fell in love with it immediately. He's definitely a train kid. But even for the non-train-obsessed out there, I'm sure you're familiar with this classic book. It was first written in 1930, and the story and pictures are almost sickeningly sweet at first glance. It strikes me, though, that the ethics behind this book are more complicated than I first thought. There are lots of good points and bad points here.

Let me recap the story first, in case it's not fresh in your mind. A train filled with dolls, toys, and fresh food is making its way over the mountain to the children who live in the town on the other side, when suddenly their engine breaks down. The dolls flag down passing engines and ask each one to help. The first three refuse, but the fourth engine, which is very small, agrees to help. This little blue engine has never been over the mountain before and is not sure she can make it, but with will power and determination, pulls the train over the mountain to a happy ending.

I'd like to briefly mention and then put aside the economic issues, because they are disappointing but not all that important. Stuck in a bad situation, the dolls do not try to hire a new engine or trade value-for-value, but instead start begging passers-by for help. Even if they don't have any cash, they surely have things they can trade: toys, food, empty space in the train cars after the goods are delivered on the other side of the mountain, fuel from their broken engine. It's also unclear how the toys and food are going to get into the hands of the "good little boys and girls" on the other side of the mountain. Will they be sold in a shop, or given out for free? Or are these items already owned by the boys and girls, and don't want their late-night partying on the other side of the mountain to be discovered? These questions are not addressed; it's just imperative that they get there by morning.

Why do I say that these economic issues are not very important? Because they're not a major focus of the book. You'd have to come up with the idea yourself to ask about it, and Charlie is way too young to do that. The book doesn't claim that begging is the best thing to do in the situation, and there's no discussion about alternatives; it's just what the dolls do. The focus is on other moral issues, which I discuss below: solving problems, helping others when you can, and the importance of a positive attitude and determination. Just because the setup for these issues is questionable doesn't mean that the book as a whole is a waste of time.

I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the slightly sexist aspect to the book, which is not surprising since it was written 80 years ago.  The main character taking responsibility for getting the train across the mountain is a toy clown, who is male. The two female dolls fret in the background and then start to cry. Though to be fair, a toy elephant cries, too.

Now on to the good stuff.

Solving your own problems: I see this as a very free-range-friendly book. The child-readers identify with the dolls and the little clown who were on the train and are now trying to convince another engine to pull them over the mountain. There are many parental figures who might have shown up -- the engineer, the manufacturer of the toys, the shopkeepers waiting to receive the merchandise, the parents of the children across the mountain -- but none of them are ever mentioned. The dolls are in a bind, and they use their own intelligence and resources to find help. (Another free-range note is the inclusion of a jackknife as one of the toys on the train.)

Helping others -- or not: The second or third time we read this book, right when Charlie was beginning to engage with the story, he scolded the first engine that refused to help. "No, choo-choo train! That is not okay!" He was very adamant, shaking his finger at the book and frowning. This provided possibly the first occasion for me to verbally explain rationally selfish ethics to him. It is okay for the engine to refuse help, but it's not very nice. We probably don't want to be friends with him. The author and most readers would probably characterize the non-helpers as morally bad, but there is nothing in the text or pictures that demands this interpretation. There's also a great opportunity to differentiate between the first two engines, who are just snooty and mean, and the third engine, who is old and tired and might suffer actual pain if he helped.

The fourth engine agrees to help because she is friendly and nice. She doesn't have to, nobody forces her to, but she decides of her own free will that she will take on what is for her a very difficult task in order to help others. She has nothing to lose, and she has a sense of benevolence and of adventure that are inspiring.

Positive attitude: This last message is what the book is known for. The little blue engine has never even been over the mountain, let alone pulling a train behind her. She's very small and is not sure she can make it. But she gives it her best try anyway, and the positive attitude ("I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.") helps her succeed in the end. Woohoo!

Overall, this is a recommend. It's not perfect, but it has a number of very good elements and teaching opportunities. The text and pictures are a bit boring to an adult, but the book is a childhood classic and Charlie absolutely loves it.

We Are What We Eat!

In this lovely and engaging book, We Are What We Eat!, the children build a food sculpture in the shape of a person, using a selection of fruits and vegetables. The Amazon product description claims it's a board book, but it's actually not. It's a hardcover with cardstock pages, each of which folds out. When you turn to a page, you see one of the fruits or vegetables in its whole form. Fold out the page to reveal the insides cut into various interesting shapes! Things like pits, seeds, and peels are labeled.

This book has been a staple in our household for over a year. Charlie likes to announce the various foods as they appear, and marvels over the differences between the insides and outsides. This is the first book where he ever pretended to grab the foods off the page and eat them, something he now does whenever a food appears in any book, anywhere.

This is a great one. The photographs are creative and engaging, the fold-out pages are used effectively to make the outside/inside distinction, and there's a positive health message because of all the fruits and vegetables. Definitely a winner.