FICTION

The Sword in the Stove

illus. by Frank Dormer. 40p. ebook available. S. & S./Atheneum. May 2016. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9781481431675.
COPY ISBN
K-Gr 2—As Eenie and Meenie start cooking, they are shocked to find their missing friend Harold's sword and shield in their stove. Eenie comically cooks up ridiculous stories about why a shield could possibly be in their stove, while frantic Meenie continues to pull out additional items from their oven. The final punch line, which solves the mystery and ends the book, seems to come out of left field, which will leave some scratching their heads and others doubled over in laughter. The two cooks play off each other well, with grumpy Meenie trying to explain the situation to scatterbrained Eenie, making it an easy transition for a storytime. However, the joke is a bit one-note and hurried. Dormer's illustrations, often more conventional in other books, here take a simplistic, Oliver Jeffers-like approach. His choice to use a basic color palette against a mostly plain white background keeps the focus on the characters's dramatic facial expressions and size differences, which adds to the humor of the piece.
VERDICT A hilarious addition to any picture book collection.

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