November 1, 2021
This humorous picture book by Greenfield follows a familiar premise: the narrator, a reluctant reader, does not want to read the book in their hands. What follows is a meta text filled with curious asides and snarky ruminations on words, sentences, paragraphs, and more, both on an individual level and structurally: “Some words are just plain RIDICULOUS,” one page reads in handwriting-like text. “Take the word DOUBT for example,” the next page continues: “What is a ‘B’ doing in there???” A goldenrod box reads, pointing to the word in question. “If no one can HEAR the B why do we have to SEE it???” Lowery’s art, done in pencil and digital media, evokes a child’s notebook, with plentiful simple doodles, word art, underlines, boxes, and more against colorfully eye-catching pages and graph paper–evoking grids in this visually compelling narrative. Ages 4–8.