Penguin Young Readers is celebrating the holiday season with 12 Days of Picture Books from 12/2 to 12/18. Today's picture book is The Nonsense Show. Check out Penguin Young Readers' Facebook page for the giveaway. For more gift ideas, check out Penguin's Gift Guide.
The Nonsense Show
by Eric Carle
Philomel Books (October 13, 2015)
Fiction * Imagination * Word Play
Description from GoodReads:
Ducks growing out of bananas? A mouse catching a cat? What’s wrong with this book?
Yes, there’s something strange, something funny and even downright preposterous on every page of this bookBut it’s not a mistake – it’s nonsense! And it’s also surrealism. Nonsense lies at the heart of many beloved nursery rhymes. Children readily accept odd statements like “the cow
jumped over the moon” and “the dish ran away with the spoon.” This fanciful bending of reality is also basic to surrealism.
In this book, nonsense and surrealism combine to spark creativity and imagination. What’s true? What’s impossible? What’s absolutely absurd? From Eric Carle, creator of the classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, comes a book to make children laugh and think, preparing them for a
lifetime of loving both words and art.
Following on the heels of The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse (an homage to the artist Franz Marc and expressionism) and Friends, with its semi-abstract artwork, The Nonsense Show forms a trilogy of sorts, dedicated to introducing young readers to different styles of artwork without ever overlooking the need to, first and foremost, appeal to children and their love of play. One of the true legends and pioneers of picture book making continues to expand and challenge the genre.
Official Book Trailer:
Thoughts about this book:
At 86 years old, Eric Carle is still creating children's books. His latest, The Nonsense Show came out in October 2015.
Filled with rhyming text, riddle like questions, Carle leads readers through a series of absurd images and scenarios such as the duck coming from the banana on the cover or a fish in a bird cage.
Though The Nonsense Book is different from some of Carle's more well-known books, the book invites readers to explore, laugh, and talk about the wacky combinations throughout the book.
Collectors of Carle's previous books will want to add this to their collections. Those looking for a read aloud that will engage students in conversation and laughter will want to pick this one up.
Photo: © Cirsten Carle
About the author/illustrator:
Eric Carle is acclaimed and beloved as the creator of brilliantly illustrated and innovatively designed picture books for very young children. His best-known work, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, has eaten its way into the hearts of literally millions of children all over the world and has been translated into more than 25 languages and sold over twelve million copies. Since theCaterpillar was published in 1969, Eric Carle has illustrated more than sixty books, many best sellers, most of which he also wrote.