I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato

Author/Illustrator: Lauren Child

Published by: Candlewick Press, 2000

Genre: Picture Book, Multi-cultural

Age Range: k-3

Kate Greenaway Medal

This extremely cute book is about Charlie and his little sister Lola who has a long list of things she will NOT eat. In order to get her to try these things he becomes very inventive and renames them and gives them interesting places of origin. Carrots become "orange twiglets from Jupiter" and mashed potatoes become "cloud fluff" from Mount Fuji. In the end Lola finds that she does like these different foods and she even trys tomatoes on her own after renaming them "moonsquirters".

I loved this book. It helps the readers to open their imaginations and to try new things. Lauren Child uses mixed media and font that is bolded or wiggles across the page to create an interesting way to read. Her bright colors and child-like drawings can really appeal to younger viewers because they can probably see themselves making things that look just like this. She uses cut out drawings and what looks like clippings from photographs or magazines to create her illustrations.

This type of approach can easily be brought into the classroom. This would be a great way to teach students about collage and use of color. They can also begin to understand how seeing shapes is important in being able to draw or create things that look believable. I use the term "believable" because they don't have to neccesarily look real. For example the table tops in the illustrations are cut out from pictures but they are not just rectangles they are cut to make it look like they go back in perspective so the things sitting on top won't look like they will slide off. These table tops still don't look "real" but they make sense to the eye. I would want probably want to keep the subject of this project open that way students could really play with the material and create interesting scenes from their imaginations.