Meet Bobo and Have Some (Red) Lemonade

Even though my children are at the upper range of picture book reading in terms of age, it delights me when they are delighted by books that I think are for much younger readers.  Sometimes I think they are appreciating the elements of the story that an adult would like, and sometimes I think they just have a good sense of appreciation for a funny joke or well told story.  We read a few books last night that are examples of this.

I Must Have Bobo ! and I’ll Save You Bobo! by Eileen & Marc Rosenthal are short and simple stories about a little boy and his beloved stuffed monkey, Bobo.  The problem is that his cat, Earl, also adores Bobo and wants to steal him away whenever he can.  I think it’s so sweet that the cat loves Bobo, but the boy becomes increasingly angry at Earl and is frequently yelling at him. The expressions on his face when he snaps, “Earl, No! Go away!” are hilarious.  The illustrations are really quite brilliant-Earl’s ears peering over a chair, a paw snaking out to touch Bobo, angry eyebrows when the boy says “a big snake is about to EAT EARL ALIVE” while Earl sits placidly on the drawing depicting such a thing.  The boy’s running commentary to Bobo combined with the clever pictures had all us laughing wildly.

The Red Lemon by Bob Staake starts out as a bouncy rhyming story about Farmer McPhee and his precious lemon trees.  He loves his lemons and lemon grove and admires the beautiful fruits. “Bright yellow lemons for miles and miles! Bright yellow lemons give farmers big smiles!”  He extols the many virtues of the beautiful fruits in big round computer generated illustrations. But then, gasp! A red lemon in the midst of all the yellow ones.  “I can’t have red lemons where yellow fruit grows! Imagine a world where lemonade’s red!” He gets rid of the offensive fruit immediately. But then, in a surprising ending we fast forward in time 200 years to see what has become of that red lemon and of Farmer McPhee. It’s actually a rather thought provoking ending and one the kids really liked it.