From Publishers Weekly
Ruthie hates eating vegetables so much she's even inspired to compose an ode: "Give me a yucky carrot,/ I'll feed it to the parrot./ Offer me slimy beets,/ I'll stomp them with my feets." But when her mother puts Ruthie to work in the vegetable garden, the girl discovers not only a talent for cultivation, but a palate for produce as well. Rubel (illustrator of the Rotten Ralph books) offers few insights or comedic twists in taking on this familiar food-a-phobia theme although her tight prose gets across both Ruthie's gustatory intransigency and the wit's-end frustration of everyone who shares her dinner table. The meticulously outlined, highly stylized watercolor and ink pictures are the real draw. The sloe-eyed characters, flattened perspectives and intensely hued interiors brim with the cheeky, quirky details that Rubel's fans expect, as in the set of fish-shaped canisters in the kitchen or the offbeat fabrics of the characters' clothes (and canine fans will enjoy spotting Ruthie's pooch in every illustration even at school). The irreverent visuals turn a familiar tale into a piquant little offering. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Ruthie does not like vegetables. She does not like seeing them on her plate; she does not like hearing about them from her teacher. In spite of Dad's scolding, Ruthie fusses her way through meal after meal. And then Mom has an idea: Ruthie finally gets her way - no more vegetables! - as long as she agrees to help plant and tend this year's vegetable garden. Ruthie figures that growing vegetables will be better than eating them. Little does she suspect that growing vegetables will soon make vegetables grow on her.
With wild watercolors and an understated text, Nicole Rubel explores the touchy subject of fussy eating in a way that both young readers and their parents will find amusing and easy to swallow.