Up Down Inside Out

Yoon (Beastly Verse) illustrates 18 English-language proverbs with strong, powerful graphics. Prints in bright red and blue ink on rough cream pages give this lift-the-flap book a distinctive look. Her images play off the literal meaning of the words. “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” is illustrated with an image of a nattily dressed fly as it tries to extricate multiple feet from a sticky pool of honey. (The message that kindness produces better results than force is not the picture’s focus.) “Too many cooks spoil the broth” introduces, with the opening of a double gatefold, a hilarious, visual maelstrom of flying ham and spilling soup. “A wolf can change its coat, but not its nature” is paired with an image of a wolf on one page in fur with a deer leg, and on the next in knitted wool with a dead rabbit, a happy predator either way. (The strange “Liars and gossips are siamese twins” seems out of place, given its inclusion of a phrase that’s no longer in general use.) What Yoon may really be representing with these surreal, arresting images is what pops into children’s minds when they first hear these bizarre expressions. Ages 6–10. [em](Sept.) [/em]