Review - Please, Mr. Panda

Please, Mr. Panda
by Steve Antony
Date: 2014
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 32
Format: e-book
Source: library

What is the proper way to ask Mr. Panda for doughnuts?

Patiently and politely, Mr. Panda asks the animals he comes across if they would like a doughnut. A penguin, a skunk, and a whale all say yes, but they do not remember to say "please" and "thank you." Is anyone worthy of Mr. Panda's doughnuts?

Steve Antony has captured a cute Panda, delightful animals hungry for doughnuts, and a manners lesson. With the black-and-white animals, plain backgrounds, and brightly colored doughnuts, Antony's art is bold, striking, and engaging.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I think this is one of the stupidest picture books I've come across recently. The main issue is, the animals aren't asking for doughnuts. Mr. Panda is asking if they'd like one. If they're not sufficiently polite in their response, he gets passive aggressive (and rude), turns his back on them, and says they can't have one! He even makes the whale cry.

The pictures are kind of disturbing. Mr. Panda has no affect. He looks bored the whole time he's playing these mind games. I suspect he might be a sociopath.

Look, saying "please" and "thank you" are polite, and if the animals had encountered Mr. Panda and his box of doughnuts and said, "Give me one right now!", he might've been justified in refusing. But the fact that he offered, and then reneged on the offer when the response didn't meet his own unknowable threshold for politeness, just makes him look rude. (If this were a book for adults, I would suspect that might be the point. You know, an ironic statement about the people who demand etiquette but don't show much themselves. Sadly, I think this book is just a poorly conceived, preachy children's book.)

This just isn't a very good book, either in concept or execution. Preachy to the point of pathological, Mr. Panda should take his doughnuts and--well, at the risk of sounding impolite--shove 'em.

Premise: 1/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 1/5
Illustrations: 1/5
Originality: 2/5

Enjoyment: 0/5

Overall: 0.83 out of 5