Fed Up!: A Feast of Frazzled Foods - Hardcover

Beginning with "Anxious Apples" who stand beside a lunchbox, contemplating an apple core, this edgy alphabet book's veggie stars are a worried lot. A "Tomato in Trouble" anticipates being squashed by a boot, two "Exiting Eggs" watch in alarm as a third egg sizzles in a pan and, like a crowd of protesters, "Objecting Oranges" face down a juicer. A woe-is-me cabbage sobs over a plastic container of cole slaw; a dueling lemon and lime give new meaning to the expression "food fight." Barron's (Eggbert the Slightly Cracked Egg) acrylic wash and colored pencil illustrations are full of good humor and verve. A number of jokes may require the appreciation of older readers: understanding the wit or significance of "Dills [that] Debate Destiny" and a "Zen Zucchini" meditating in a Japanese garden, for instance, may be beyond the very young. But those ready to graduate from the vegetable vagaries of Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers's How Are You Peeling? will find plenty of food for thought hereAand the portrait of the "Potatoes [that] Ponder Politics" as they lounge on a couch and watch two "Quarreling Quinces" debate on TV is a satirical gem. All ages. (Oct..-- Ponder Politics" as they lounge on a couch and watch two "Quarreling Quinces" debate on TV is a satirical gem. All ages. (Oct.)
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Ages 5-8. There's a lot of alliteration in this alphabet of moody foods. From Anxious Apples to Zen Zucchini, the fruits and veggies on these pages weather a range of emotions and situations. Young readers will find some of the word choices challenging and fun, although a few seem less descriptive and out of synch with the others: S shows mixed vegetables falling into a colander, with the text reading only "Suddenly Salad," for example. It's the pictures that will draw children's interest. Detailed, colorful acrylic-and-pencil illustrations place the anthropomorphic foods in scenes kids will giggle over: an ugli fruit confronts himself in the mirror. This is for a slightly older audience than Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers' How Are You Peeling? [BKL F 1 00], and it lacks some of that title's simple whimsy. Nonetheless, young ones will probably find plenty to laugh about and may tackle some new vocabulary along the way. Gillian Engberg
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