Axioms and Maxims: UP DOWN INSIDE OUT by Joohee Yoon

AXIOMS

APHORISMS

OLD SAWS

OLD SAYINGS

All languages have them--pithy, pointed, sly, seemingly silly sayings that sound nonsensical and yet contain time-polished truth and witty wisdom.

Some are totally true on the face of it--like a stopped clock that is nevertheless right on the minute twice a day. So.... ? When you think about it, you get it--the idea that even people who don't know much are sometime correct.

TOO MANY COOKS SPOIL THE BROTH.

Sometimes if too many people add to the job, it can be overdone and over-the-top--the last block that collapses the tower.

A WATCHED POT NEVER BOILS.

That can't be true, can it? And yet it really does seem like forever if you stand there looking at it. And then there's the unspoken corollary that if you walk out of the room to do something else, the pot boils over!

Joohee Yoon's collection of old sayings for youngsters help them understand that these old saws that contain truths, such as TALL OAKS FROM TINY ACORNS GROW, are a quick way to explain how things work, with a boy planting an acorn followed by a two-page spread with a vertical gatefold of a tall, tall tree. Enlivened by funny illustrations and clever lift-the-flap pages that explain folksy proverbs, old sayings and aphorisms, sage old saws and adages, dictums and tenets, and all those jolly ways language manages to put wisdom in the proverbial nutshell, Yoon's Up Down Inside Out (Enchanted Lion Books, 2019) is a great one to introduce elementary grade readers to the wisdom of the ages and the wit of their language. Of this clever little nonfiction book, School Library Journal says in its starred review "Yoon offers readers highly stylized, often humorous interpretations of the sayings. Clever, challenging content paired with accomplished, unusual art."