Fast Food - Hardcover

Elffers, Joost; Freymann, Saxton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 043911019X ISBN 13: 9780439110198

Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2006

Synopsis

Fruits and vegetables leap off the plate and off the page in Saxton Freymann's fast-paced tribute to things that GO!

When you see piles of veggies lying sedately around the corner store, you'd never guess all that produce really wants to go, go, GO! But Saxton Freymann did, and he's transformed those basking berries and lazy legumes into vehicles of every size and speed. Kids everywhere will thrill over the array of transportation methods on display, from enormous rockets and grand ocean liners to the simplest mechanism of all: your feet. And as always, Freymann's clever vegetable sculptures delight the eye and tickle the funny bone. Hurry up and grab some FAST FOOD!

About this title

About the Author

In the fertile mind of artist/sculptor Saxton Freymann, a cauliflower is a poodle, an artichoke is a wolf, a banana is an octopus, and a pumpkin is just about anything. Fruits and veggies - meticulously carved, then photographed - are his special gift to the bountiful world of children's literature. "What's great about food," he says, "is that it keeps all of the photos fun." Freymann lives in New York City with his wife and three children, all of whom are very healthy, he says, because they eat the cast of characters he works on. For more information about Saxton Freymann, visit: scholastic.com/tradebooks Born in The Netherlands to artist parents, Joost turned his creative energy to food in 1976, when he became fascinated with the garnishes used by Japanese sushi chefs. The result was Play With Your Food, his first collaboration with Saxton Freymann, and a bestseller for the whole family. Joost believes that if you can open children's eyes and thinking with things they can understand and duplicate - like food creations - a new range of creativity opens up. "Then," he says, "you can take them to a museum."

Review

Booklist *STAR* Freyman, Saxton and Elffers, Joost. Fast Food. Mar. 2006. 32p. Illus. by Saxton Freyman. Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine, $12.99 (0-439-11019-X).
PreS–Gr. 2. Like Freymann and Elffers' other books, such as How Are You Peeling? (1999) and Food for Thought (2005), this picture book takes a theme (here, transportation) and illustrates it with exceptionally clear color photos of ephemeral, sometimes whimsical sculptures created from fruits and vegetables. As quietly witty as its title, the book is narrated by a little mushroom man who suggests different ways of getting about: on foot or by skateboard, wheelchair, bicycle, skis, car, bus, truck, train, sailboat, submarine, airplane, blimp, or rocket. The playful text gallops along smoothly in rhymed couplets, while the illustrations work their inimitable charm. Little mushroom, radish, and gingerroot people drive around in cars made from a variety of foods: peppers, a cucumber, a sweet potato, and (wait for it . . .) a lemon. Because the pear-based helicopter (runners made of string beans, blades of peapods, and piloted by a radish head with a confident smile) is photographed slightly from below and suspended above the tops of leafy parsley stalks, it appears to hover above trees. Clean book design and vivid color reproduction ensure that the art takes center stage here. This handsome book is both a uniquely entertaining addition to preschool and primary-grade units on transportation and an irresistible invitation for children to play creatively with their food. –Carolyn Phelan

KIRKUS STARRED 1/1/06
FAST FOOD by Freyman, Saxton ISBN 0-439-11019-X; $ 12.99; all ages; 32 pages
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Freyman's parade if inventively carved and combined fruits and veggies rolls on, this time demonstrating modes of travel, He starts with feet (actual mushroom stems) of course, and continues through skates and scooters, a wheelchair, skis, automobiles, a fire truck, a passenger train with cucumber cars, boats, planes and finally a carrot/rocket orbiting an unaltered cantaloupe that, just as it is, looks remarkably moonlike, Wheels are slices of jalapeno or radish; a sea of cabbage floats boats made of pea pods, scooped out banana peels and a watermelon steamer. Who won't smile at the banana airplane, squash blimp or romaine-leaf sail? Accompanied by a bouncy rhyme- "By foot, on wheels, by air or sea,/ I hope that soon you'll visit me!"- these vehicles and their delightfully lifelike passengers will inspire laughter and admiration in equal measure.

SLJ
PreS-Gr 3–Once again, the creative team that brought readers such delicious titles as How Are You Peeling? (1999) and Food for Thought (2005, both Scholastic), is at it again, this time sculpting fruits and vegetables to depict things that go. An engaging mushroom figure (think Pillsbury Dough boy) leads the way as he runs and skips, skis and skates, pedals and glides under his own power. From there, the pace picks up, highlighting mechanical, long-distance vehicles, such as cars, trucks, trains, ocean liners, and helicopters. Each ingenious construction maintains the integrity of its various elements (the train consists of zucchini passenger cars on a celery-stalk track) photographed against solid backgrounds. As any librarian knows, books on transportation always move, and this one, featuring an okra airplane and a ginger kayaker paddling a fava-bean boat, may move faster than most.–Luann Toth, School Library Journal

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About this edition

• Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 043911019X
• ISBN 13: 9780439110198
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Freymann Saxton