Peas Be with You! 1-2-3 Peas by Keith Baker

THREE PEAS BOATING: ROW! ROW! ROW!

FOUR PEAS PLANTING: GROW, GROW, GROW!

The PEAS are back in Keith Baker's re-PEA-t appearance of his best-selling pedagogic peas, introduced in LMNO Peas, this time teaching numbers in his new 1-2-3 Peas (Beach Lane, 2012).

While it is a temptation to pun that this latest pea-saga isn't a patch on his alphabet outing, these numerical peas will doubtless please the preschool crowd. Baker's page design, with all bright-white pages (except for the 60s, a darker decade!) showing off his large pastel numerals as well as the numbers spelled out, works perfectly as a counting primer, but as in the earlier book, the antics of his anthropomorphic stick-limbed peas will charm the eye of youngsters, who will wish to to pea-ruse each page re-peatedly, while his pea-puns have their own wry ap-PEA-l to the adult who reads both books aloud. (For example, sharp-eyed adults will note the fab four "Peatles" and a glitzy "Peayonce'" putting in an appearance among the peas .)

Thanks to Keith Baker, kids, teachers, and parents will find both of these titles perfectly pea-chy, and youngsters will never think of that much maligned veggie in the same way again. "... Families are sure to devour Baker's latest winner. Totally ap-pea-ling!" quips Kirkus.

And for a perfect preschool pairing, there's a taste of LMNO Peas here.

"Peas" of Cake! Little Green Peas: A Big Book of Color by Keith Baker

It had to happen! What comes more naturally for pods of little green goodness than teaching about colors? After all, it may be a drag for Kermit the Frog, but being green is easy-peasy for them.

But being peas-full little legumes, they let another color lead the way:

BLUE!

Blue boats, blue seas, blue flags...

And Little Green Peas.

The little green peas go down to the sea in ships, sailboats, surfboards, and rowboats in a duo of double-page spreads, the first spread featuring tall capital letters spelling out the word, set against a paler blue background of ocean waves, and the second spread showing the little green peas doing all the things they can do with blue, riding the waves, sunbathing, and digging for pea-root, er, pirate treasure on the beach.

Similarly featured are RED, in an autumn scene, YELLOW, featuring little peas climbing into their big yellow school bus, ORANGE, with balloons and pumpkins, as well as GREEN, PURPLE, SILVER, AND basic BLACK and WHITE. Fittingly, the green pages open with a double-page spread of a huge field of pea plant vines, leafy and oh-so-green, followed by platoon of big peas picking cute baby peas from their pods.  The silver pages feature a gray castle, with a Rapunzel-pea lowering her long locks, and for the adult reader, a wispy, silvery ghost on the parapet (an ap-pea-rition of Hamlet's father, p'haps?). Much visual humor abounds to keep little readers absorbed in each page with the antics of the busy little peas, not to mention the running gags--a paper airplane soars through the pages from beginning to end, and a little painter pea is discovered at his easel, hard at work on each not-quite-complete page.

Keith Baker's third concept book in this series, Little Green Peas: A Big Book of Colors (Beach Lane Books, 2014) offers an ap-pea-ling visual delight as it helps make learning this preschool skill a peas er,  piece of cake. School Library Journal's reviewer declares this newest a re-peat ap-pea-rance, starring this one and saying, "Simple in concept but elegant in design and execution, this title is a delight!"

Other books in this series are LMNO Peas (Classic Board Books), and 1-2-3 Peas (Classic Board Books) (Read my punny peas-ful reviews here!)

Peas and Queues! L M N O Peas by Keith Baker

WE ARE PEAS--ALPHABET PEAS.

WE WORK AND PLAY IN THE ABCs!

And these are no proverbial peas in a pod, either. Each group of peas has a different vocation or avocation, and the animated, anthropomorphic peas with jolly faces and stick arm and legs show us, not tell us, what their own special thing is.

WE'RE GARDENERS, GIGGLERS, GIVERS, AND TAKERS.

WE"RE HIKERS, INVENTORS, AND INVESTIGATORS

Against large, bright white pages, over-sized block capital letters in warm pastels are surrounded by personable peas, panting as they bike, grinning when tickled with feather dusters, and even safecracking (outlaws taking more). The big D for drive is enmeshed in a superhighway, with traffic circles, exits and entrances, and clover leaves all entwining the letter while varied vehicles drive along with their passengers. The text even takes time for some wordplay (the farmer farms at Happea Farm and four pea-ple perform in a band called The Pod.)

There are bunches and bunches (or pods and pods) of alphabet books out there, but Keith Baker's latest, LMNO Peas (Simon & Schuster/Beach Lane, 2010) has a lot to offer the young letter learner. With big pages and one or two large letters per page for most of the alphabet, this one performs well with a group of preschoolers, and the fascinating activities of the personable peas will keep individual readers poring over these pages long after the story is done. Word choices for each letter are very creative, and the overall effect is, well, peas-fully pleasing, considering that it stars some oft-maligned vegetables as protagonists.

Friendship, Blendship! Carrot and Pea by Morag Hood

Lee is a green pea, as round as can be.
Not one of his pals is odd. They're all like peas in a pod.

His friends are all spherical, if the truth be told.
So they hang out together. That's just how they roll.

But....

Colin is not a pea.

Clearly. He's orange, square-ish, and ...

Much too tall.

Colin is a unquestionably a carrot stick.
A rectangular solid, to be geometrically strict.

How can Lee the Pea befriend such an odd fellow? He simply doesn't roll, no matter how hard Lee shoves, and he stands out in the crowd like a sore thumb when they play hide-and-seek. But he stands tall when he plays a tower. He can bridge a gap when Lee wants to get over, and he can simulate a slide when Lee and the peas want to get down in a hurry.

Can Colin the Carrot be a friend for a passel of peas? They do have a few things in common.

They both just love to play. And there's carotene in their DNA.
In a parallel universe they are delectable edibles. And truth to tell, they are all VEGETABLES!

What's not to like, when plant pals pair up, in Morag Hood's forthcoming veggie book, Carrot and Pea: An Unlikely Friendship (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), a cheerfully charming veggie tale of bridging differences to find a unique friend. Hood's simple narrative is accessible even to emergent readers, since her standout two-tone illustrations (collaged prudently from plastic bags) tell the tale eloquently, ending in a final page in which Colin the Carrot enjoys a group hug from Lee the Pea and his rotund pals in a peas-ful plea for the power of friendship. A little lesson on many levels, from shapes to colors, to valuing differences, Hood's book brings together a familiar culinary duo in a humorous pairing that is sure to please.

And for a peas-able pleasing picture book pairing, read this new one with Keith Baker's incredible vegetable doings, LMNO Peas (The Peas Series), 1-2-3 Peas (The Peas Series), and Little Green Peas: A Big Book of Colors (The Peas Series) (read reviews here).

The Escape Escapade: The Runaway Pea by Kjarten Poskitt

DINNER IS READY. BUT WHAT DO YOU SEE? SOMETHING'S ESCAPED!

A RUNAWAY PEA!

A young green pea on a plate at the table,

Decided to escape while he was able!

DINNER IS READY, BUT WHAT DO YOU SEE?

SOMETHING IS MISSING--A RUNAWAY PEA!

Pea popped off the table, skidded through the catsup, and plopped into the puppy's water dish. He dodged the dog, splashed into the fish tank, twanged off the spider's web, and landed on a shelf. What else could possibly go wrong?

Well, when the fan switched on, the pea wafted away and into the toaster, where he is ejected with a fiery hot backside into the dryer, from which he rolls under the fridge, the habitat of some questionable escapees--two moldy peas and a rotten banana.

SAID THE PEA, "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?"

"WE RAN AWAY, TOO!" THEY ALL SAID SADLY.

"WE DON'T RECOMMEND IT. YOU GET OLD AND WRINKLY AND SMELL BADLY!"

Pea regrets his hasty escape, as he's swept away and dumped into the compost pile, where he soon finds himself sprouting roots and putting out shoots.

But this is not the end for Pea; it's not even a fable!

He's not a goner, not this green pea. He's just recyclable.

Author Kjarten Poskitt and illustrator Alex Willmore invite kids to wordplay with their food in their brand-new vegeterian treat, The Runaway Pea (Aladdin Books, 2021).

Give peas a chance by sharing this one with Keith Baker's LMNO Peas (The Peas Series), (See my reviews here).

Says School Library Journal, "Fresh, frozen or canned, we’ve all experienced the flee of a runaway pea, and for classrooms and story times, this delightful read-aloud is sure to be gobbled up by delighted young readers."

Dinner Winner? Can I Eat That? by Joshua David Stein

Can I eat a potato? A tomato? A tornado?

No, you can't eat a tornado. it's made out of wind.

But you can eat... tonnato, a sauce from Italy made with tuna....

... tournados, a type of steak from France...

... or a tostado, a type of fried tortilla with delicious toppings from Mexico.

Can we eat a sea urchin? They do in Japan. How about jellyfish? Do we spread them on a bagel? No, but in China they slice them thinly and serve them chilled on shredded veggies!

Can we pick pickles from a pickle vine? No, but we can turn cucumbers into tasty condiments by soaking them in vinegary brine!

Do eggs grow on egg plants? No, eggplants grow on eggplant plants.

But that raises the inevitable follow-up question:

Where do eggs come from then?

Chickens.

Oh, and where do chickens come from?

All chickens come from eggs, but not all eggs become chickens.

Some become breakfast.

Skipping the issue of which came first, we move on to more, um, salient or saucy inquiries:

If there's bacON, is there bacOFF?

So where there's ketchUP, does there have to be ketchDOWN? Can there be both raisINS and raisOUTS?

There are a plenty of spicy tongue teasers and tongue tanglers in Joshua David Stein's Can I Eat That? (Phaidon Press, 2016), a book of many flavors, suitable for serving up for potential young foodies or persnickety eaters alike, a gustatory vocabulary builder, and a teachable text on foodstuffs for primary grade nutrition units.

Clearly author Joshua David Stein didn't heed his parents' injunction not to play with his food! Stein makes the world of edibles his gustatory and linguistic playground, cooking up some delicious wordplay which is as savory to the ear as artist Julia Rothman's illustrations are sweet to the eye. Rothman sets the table with lovely Victorian china, plated with some surprising dishes--jellyfish, snails, and thinly sliced sea urchins with rice--and her pictured eggplants, ripe with "hen fruit" are a visual gag that will easily engender giggles.

Even picky eaters may have their taste buds titillated and their funnybones tickled by Stein's explorations of the way the world eats. A tempting and tasteful literary treat for the primary set, serve this one up hot or cold for those well-lettered kids who have already consumed Keith Baker's toothsome LMNO Peas (The Peas Series) (See review here). "Giddy in its sense of linguistic discovery" says Publishers Weekly of Stein's quite palatable picture book.