No, David!

I first heard about No, David! from Charlie's day care teacher, who recommended it as a perennial favorite in her class. Then, when he switched schools a few months later, I heard about it from his new day care teacher. Within a couple more months, I was hearing about it from Charlie himself. Really, it's completely understandable. What could toddlers possibly like more than watching a kid do all the things they're not allowed to do, and getting to tell him "No, David!" on each page?

David writes on walls. He balances precariously on top of a chair to reach the cookie jar on a high shelf. He tracks mud through the house and splashes water out of the bath. He runs outside without any clothes on!!! He bangs pots and pans together, plays with his food, shoves everything into his mouth at once, and chews with his mouth open. He jumps on his bed, picks his nose, and breaks a vase by playing baseball inside the house. David is in sooooooooooo much trouble. But his mother still loves him, and gives him a big hug on the last page.

The story is told with an absolute minimum of words. Each two-page spread is an illustration of a single bad thing David does. The only words are variations on "No, David!" The illustrations are not really to my liking. They're done in a style I refer to as "dumb cartoon," so I was surprised to see that this is a Caldecott Honor Book. Still, they do provide a fair amount of detail to discover, and they manage to tell the story entirely on their own.

Charlie loves to tell me rambling and semi-coherent vignettes from this book. "Mommy say 'No, David!' Maybe he fall and bump his head because he trying to reach the cookie jar waaaaaay up high and it on the shelf and he maybe fall and bump his head so she say 'No, David! That is not ok!' Ask for a cookie maybe?"

This is on my kid's all-time most-loved toddler books list. Highly recommended.