Applesauce Is Fun to Wear

by Nancy Raines Day, Jane Massey (Illustrator)

Overview

Wearing food is much more fun than eating it in this sweet and sticky ode to toddler mealtime

Applesauce is fun to wear on your nose or in your hair. Toast is always nice and flat. What could make a better hat?
What’s more fun than eating your food? Wearing it, and toddlers are especially talented at that. This adorable picture book features a diverse cast of babies making a delightful mess at mealtime.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781951836054
Publisher:	ABRAMS
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 9.35(h) x 0.55(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 3 Years

About the Author

Nancy Raines Day made a wish on pennies in a wishing well to become a writer, and 10 years later, her first picture book came out. She and her husband live on St. Simons Island in Georgia, where she thinks up ideas while walking on the beach and swimming in the ocean. Jane Massey is a children’s book illustrator who lives and works in Hove on the South Coast of England. She studied graphic design at Kingston University and worked for several design agencies in London and Hong Kong in addition to illustrating children’s books. Applesauce Is Fun to Wear is their first book for Cameron Kids.

Editorial Reviews

2021-02-09
Mealtime can be messy.

When tiny tots are gaining independence and feeding themselves for the first time, food doesn’t always end up exactly where it is supposed to go. In a silly, rollicking rhyme, Day explores the many ways that highchair-time can go awry. The titular phrase says it all: “Applesauce is fun to wear / on your nose / or in your hair.” In Massey’s accompanying illustration, a bowl is upturned on a youngster’s head, spoon cast aside, applesauce dripping everywhere. Toast, spread thick with jam, proves to be an impossible urge to ignore: “Toast is always nice and flat. / What could make a better hat?” Plus, peas escape too easily; it’s not the toddler’s fault: “Roly-poly peas are fine / to squish / or fling / or put in line.” Oftentimes, eating can be more of a full-body experience than one limited to the sense of taste. Mashed bananas? Of course they turn into “gloppy gloves!” Massey provides a diverse cast of little ones in a pale palette, highlighting smears and smudges across tiny faces. They appear against a white background that is the opposite of clean, displaying little handprints and smears. The conclusion, which lands appropriately in the bath, is a bit slapdash, the playful rhyme having built momentum to what feels like an abrupt end. But the unbridled joy of messiness shines through. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 60.2% of actual size.)

Dive into the spaghetti with gusto. (Picture book. 1-4)

Kirkus Reviews