Little Pea

by Amy Krause Rosenthal
illustrated by Jen Corace
Chronicle 2005

Little Pea must eat his candy if he wants to grow up to be big and strong. More importantly, he must eat his candy if he wants his dessert: spinach.

This wisp of a twist on the trials of dinnertime, while cute, feels empty. In order to flesh out the punchline we are shown the daily life of Little Pea and his family, and then later, just to drag it out more, we get a day-by-day description of the different candies he must eat in order to get his reward.

Like I said, cute, but it's the kind of a joke that works better in four or five pages, not 28. James Marshall could have had George and Martha do the exact same thing in a fraction of the words and I would have guffawed. Unfair comparison, to put a cute book against a classic? Tough. I finished this book and immediately went for George and Martha and cleansed my palate.

Because I ate my spinach of cute and needed some real dessert. Am I grouchy this week, or is it just me?

The OK Book

by Amy Krause Rosenthal &
Tom Lichtenfeld
Kook Productions/
HarperCollins 2007

1970's pop psychology took this long to filter down into picture books?

The letters OK are tilted to one side to represent a child who introduces us to all the things they are "okay" at. Despite making mistakes within the illustrations the text confidently declares that they are still okay:

An okay pancake flipper (though it lands on its head);

An okay kite flyer (while it's stuck in a tree);

An okay swimmer (sticking a cautious toe in the water at the edge of the shore);

"One day, I'll grow up and be really excellent at something...
...but I sure am having fun figuring it out."

It's difficult to take a self-esteem book to task for its earnestness, but a part of me feels that learning these sorts of lessons from books -- rather than through more effective approaches like parenting and example -- removes a certain layer of responsibility. It provides adults a false sense of fulfilled obligation, that by introducing the concept of being "okay for the time being" through a book absolves those adults from further interaction or reinforcement. Perhaps as a preschool tool for introducing children to the topic as a jumping-off point for discussion it's okay, though the repetition of the text could prove tedious.

But perfectly for okay parents who might need the reminders.