{"id":29742,"date":"2019-05-24T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=29742"},"modified":"2019-05-24T08:00:19","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T12:00:19","slug":"another-glorious-picture-book-free-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=29742","title":{"rendered":"Another Glorious Picture Book Free-for-all"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that the fall buying season has begun in earnest, I once again<\/a> brought a big stack of picture book samples to our biweekly BookKids team meeting to see what people gravitated to. Now, this batch \"\"<\/a>only reflected a handful of recent mailings, so it certainly doesn\u2019t represent anywhere near everything on the fall lists, but we had a lot of fun diving in! So what does it sound like when a bunch of booksellers tear through a table of new picture books? Well, there\u2019s a lot of page turning, punctuated by effusive, declarative statements, such as \u201cI LOVE foxes.\u201d But it\u2019s the spontaneous read-alouds and debates that we\u2019re all really in it for.
\nThe biggest hit today had to be\u00a0Pokko and the Drum<\/em>.\u00a0<\/em>I only got as far as the first page before I demanded people drop everything and listen. It\u2019s a fantastic first page.* \u201cThe biggest mistake Pokko\u2019s parents ever made was giving her a drum. They had made mistakes before.\u201d You see, Pokko\u2019s parents have a history of buying regrettable gifts for their cherished frog daughter (the llama was particularly ill-advised). They\u2019ve stupidly done it again, and now they\u2019re stuck with the ear-shattering consequences. As hilariously matter-of-fact statements chronicle each new development in their family drama, Matthew Forsythe keeps it deceptively simple in the art as well, letting his expressive froggy faces do the humorous heavy lifting.\"\"<\/a>
\nIllustrated details throughout add to the fun, showing the parents\u2019 squashed legs sticking out from under the llama that has destroyed their house or depicting their double sided family bed, with their pillows at one end and Pokko\u2019s at the other\u2014which is where she would sleep, if she weren\u2019t marching about on top of their shared coverlet, banging on her drum. I\u00a0also loved the sly moment where one of Pokko\u2019s band mates eats\u00a0the other, where we get a glimpse at the casual savagery all too common in the eat-or-be-eaten world of children\u2019s books<\/a>. The difference here is that Pokko will have none of it, stopping the\u00a0action on a dime to boldly berate the perpetrator before continuing on, business as usual. All in all, it’s\u00a0an unpredictable delight from beginning to end.
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