cover image Apples and Oranges: Going Bananas with Pairs

Apples and Oranges: Going Bananas with Pairs

Sara Pinto, . . Bloomsbury, $16.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-1-59990-103-9

Pinto (The Alphabet Room ) plays at “going bananas” by giving unexpected answers to outwardly obvious questions. For example, after “How are an apple and an orange alike?” readers turn the page to discover an offbeat response: “They both don’t wear glasses.” Straightforward illustrations of such twosomes as a bird and a kite, a starfish and an octopus, or a spoon and a fork, each grouped on a beige background, continue the game by emphasizing what the objects have in common. Each answer, however, continues to take the unexpected direction. Pinto’s ink-and-watercolor sketches give full play to what “they both don’t” do—e.g., they picture a mug and a teacup riding in the rodeo or trousers and underpants as hats for two ladies in a Parisian restaurant (the Eiffel tower can be glimpsed from a window). As in untutored art, Pinto’s detailed scenarios stint on perspective and primarily underscore punch lines. An open-ended conclusion (“How are you and I alike?/ We both don’t...”) transfers the author’s unpredictable comedy into the audience’s hands, inviting a different outcome with every reading. Ages 3-7. (Jan.)