Review by New York Times Review
WHEN a children's book sends a message - or when an adult book does, for that matter - it is usually strongest when the moral is conveyed with delicacy and complexity. Openly didactic stories rarely make for child or parent favorites, because beloved picture books are read repeatedly. To sustain such repetition, they need to operate on multiple levels: to inspire conversations, laughter, identification, emotion. The buried lessons in highly entertaining classics like "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Millions of Cats" - or in popular new titles like "Fancy Nancy" and "Library Lion" - are more engaging than those in books that explicitly exhort children to like themselves, eschew prejudice, value love over material objects and other such morals, important though they are. Kate Feiffer, whose debut book, "Double Pink," depicted the perils of excessive devotion to a particular color (and by extension the potential eclipse of the self by the accessories one chooses to express that self), teams up with her father, Jules, in "Henry the Dog With No Tail." It's the familiar story of a protagonist slightly different from his peers who tries to conform, eventually discovering that he is happiest just the way he is. Henry, an Australian shepherd with a lovely shaggy coat but no backside appendage, wishes he had a tail. Snooty poodles and pugs make him feel inadequate. He tries out an exceedingly long fabric tail, it doesn't work out, and he concludes: "My days of having a tail are behind me." As in David Shannon's "Bad Case of Stripes," Leo Lionni's "Color of His Own," Dan Yaccarino's "Unlovable" and countless less successful stories, the message is: Accept yourself the way you are. Feiffer the elder is one of the most comical and truthful illustrators working today. He uses his deceptively casual scrawl to capture doggy emotions ranging from misery to ecstasy. Gleefully, he renders Henry flying around a tree while attached to his insanely long battery-operated tail. This sequence in particular lends the book hilarity and pathos. However, the writing can be heavyhanded ("'You know, I guess you're not so bad without a tail,' conceded Larry"), and I got bogged down wondering how Henry's tail gets attached in the first place and how he gets the battery off when he is flying through the air at top speed. Children may have similar questions about "The Boy With Two Belly Buttons," written by Stephen J. Dubner, one of the authors of "Freakonomics," and illustrated with terrific comic energy by the New Yorker artist Christoph Niemann. Young Solomon's two belly buttons begin to perplex him when his baby sister is born with only one. His mother heartlessly informs him that "one is the right number of belly buttons," without explaining why he has two, so he goes on a quest to see if she is correct. His research takes him to a swimming pool, where he amusingly asks a woman in a maillot if he can peek inside her suit, and to the office of a professor of "buttonology," who tells him his second button is impossible. Feeling like a loser, Solomon is eventually redeemed by a Spielbergesque film director exiting a limo. The director tells him he's special, and Solomon feels better. The end. It's the same story as "Henry" - and the same message, with the same mildly distressing caveat: Accepting yourself is easier to do when glamorous poodles and film directors validate you. Young readers may also wonder why Henry has no tail and why Solomon has that second belly button. Neither book provides an explanation. Adults may blanch at explaining that the tail has probably been docked. And what to say about the belly button is anyone's guess. "Nothing," by Jon Agee, presents its message with a more layered text. Agee has made a career of chronicling the masculine midlife crisis for the preschool reader, finding ways to make children sympathize with characters who exhibit distinctly adult failings. Like "Terrific" and "Milo's Hat Trick" "Nothing" features a gentleman of a certain age, beaten down by life. Otis runs a successful antiques shop in a busy shopping district, but his bald head, hunched shoulders and slight paunch suggest a man exhausted by remembering his father's words: "The customer is always right." When Suzie Gump, "the richest lady in town," swishes into the shop wearing a fur-trimmed pink leisure suit accessorized with a small dog and a lime-green handbag, Otis has unfortunately just sold his last antique. His store is empty. Suzie asks him what's for sale, and he tells her, "Nothing" - then finds himself unable to refuse her $300 check when she decides she'll take it. Otis is filled with remorse, and won't sell more nothing to Suzie the next day - but the neighboring greedy shopkeepers are happy to fill his place: "Sam called from next door. 'I have nothing imported. Nothing from Italy! Nothing from China!'" Within days the whole city is following Suzie's lead, spending money on nothing. Agee's frenzied, faceless crowd juxtaposes sharply with Otis's pensive visage. At first one might argue that the message is obvious: Consumerism is bad, and when we buy stuff we're really buying nothing much. But Agee's tale is actually more complicated and adept than that: Suzie Gump redeems herself and Otis by purchasing something - in fact, a whole shop's worth of antiques - and not by quitting shopping entirely. The moral comes when Otis refuses to sell nothing once again to someone who wants to buy it. He rejects his father's dictum that the customer is always right. Otis finds in himself the courage to act on this new belief, and the last illustration shows him in vigorous action for the first time, heaving his misguided customer out the door. Emily Jenkins's newest book for children is "What Happens on Wednesdays."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
In a tale that brings to mind The Emperor's New Clothes, Otis is about to close his shop, having sold his last antique, when a last-minute customer arrives. He tells her there is nothing for sale, but she insists she must have this nothing. Remembering that the customer is always right, Otis makes the sale. Then all of the stores in town start selling nothing, and everyone is in a frenzy to buy it. In less than a week, everybody had plenty of it. In the meantime, Otis' shop has been replenished, only to be emptied when his original customer buys everything to fill up her nothingness. Otis breaks the cycle when it threatens to repeat itself. Cartoon illustrations set down in strong lines and colored with a soft palette make even the chaotic scenes seem uncluttered. Children will appreciate the foibles of people made foolish in their rush to have the latest thing (and, perhaps, see parallels in their own lives) in this satire on consumer-driven culture and mob mentality.--Enos, Randall Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Money for nothing? Certainly-that's the premise of Agee's (Terrific) wry story of desire and excess. Antiques dealer Otis has sold all his wares and is sweeping his bare floor when Suzie Gump, "the richest lady in town," strolls in, dressed to the nines in a gaudy pink pantsuit and walking a fashionable purse-size dog. "Now, what's for sale?" Suzie asks. After Otis glances around the empty store and says, "Uh, nothing," Suzie writes a fat check for it. With misgivings, but believing that "the customer is always right," Otis puts nothing in the trunk of her waiting car. Suzie returns the next day to crow, "Nothing is wonderful!... I must have more!" When Otis decides he can't in good conscience sell her more nothing, the vendors next door are more than willing, and crowds soon flock to these and numerous other stores that pop up to sell designer, discount and imported nothing. ("Maybe there really was something to nothing," muses the narrator about the improbable shopping frenzy.) Fortunately for secondhand salesman Otis, "in order to make room for nothing, they had to get rid of something." His shop is soon brimming with unwanted household objects and the cycle reverses. In illustrations that possess a timeless air, Agee contrasts cluttered, patterned spaces with airy rooms, outlines chunky, geometric areas with firm charcoal lines and tints broad surfaces with transparent watercolor wash. Whether enjoying this Zen-like book for the wacky conceit or the consumer critique, readers will readily recognize that the emperor has no clothes; this timely parable is certainly "something" worth having. All ages. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Shopkeeper Otis has sold his last antique when wealthy Suzie Gump enters, eager to make a purchase. Glancing around his empty store, Otis tells her he has nothing for sale. Having never owned "nothing," she literally buys it-and returns the next day for more. Conscientious Otis refuses her request, but influential Suzie's purchasing decisions starts a frenzied trend. Homeowners and shopkeepers alike begin tossing out their oh-so-yesterday's something to make room for must-have-it-today's nothing. Only the dire need of a bath towel swings the purchasing pendulum, and Suzie finds her way back to non-trend conforming Otis and his newly refurnished shop. George Newbern's narration is spot-on, and the audio evokes an old-time radio broadcast complete with tinkling door chimes and the stampede of people with money burning holes in their pockets. However, Agee's illustrations are so integral to his stories that a small bit is lost in audio alone. VERDICT Agee's satirical glimpse at modern consumerism is a must-have. Pairing the print and audio versions would provide the best of both worlds.-Cheryl -Preisendorfer, Twinsburg City Schools, OH (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Preschool, Primary) Agee turns nothing into something in this over-the-top spoof on fashions and fads. ""What's for sale?"" asks Suzie Gump, the richest lady in town. ""Uh, nothing,"" replies Otis while cleaning up his empty shop. ""How much do you want for it?"" asks Suzie. After she pays a perplexed Otis three hundred dollars for an armload of nothing, a frenzy for nothing spreads through the town, and suddenly ""nothing sold like nothing before!"" Agee's energetic illustrations show hordes of people racing into ""Sam's Imported Nothing"" and ""Al's Designer Nothing"" to take part in the latest craze, then dumping their possessions out their windows to make room for all that nothing (and occasioning a double-page spread that's a model of controlled chaos). Otis happily fills his antique shop with all the discarded items, so he's ready when Suzie comes back, this time looking for ""everything."" Good pacing and witty pictures make the most of the pleasingly silly story. Children will see right through all the foolishness, as transparent as the emperor's new clothes, and giggle all the more. The running joke stretches just enough to reach the final page, where Agee delivers the perfect punch line. And that ain't nothing. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In a barbed commentary on fashion cycles, Agee creates a spare tale that begins and ends in a storekeeper's emptied antiques shop. When Suzie Gump, the richest lady in town, walks in, Otis has "nothing" to sell. To his bemusement, she offers him $300 for it, which both inspires the neighboring merchants to offer nothing, too, and sets off a general stampede of customers--all of whom go home to throw their somethings out the window to make "room." Eventually, Suzie Gump grows dissatisfied with having nothing, and comes back to truck off the store-full of discarded goods that Otis has picked up. A moment later, in walks Tubby Portobello, the richest man in town. Though the author tucks occasional genially humorous details into his simply drawn cartoon scenes, he seems more bent on satire, poking fun at the rich folk by dressing them in florid garb and depicting the hoi polloi in happy, sheep-like herds. Next to the rich feeling and insight in Patrick McDonnell's Gift of Nothing (2005), Agee's take on the core idea is superficial, but his solid fan base will welcome this new outing. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
