Review - This Book Is Red

This Book Is Red (Books That Drive Kids CRAZY! #3)
by Beck & Matt Stanton
Date: 2018
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 32
Format: e-book
Source: library

This clever companion to This Is a Ball and Did You Take the B from My _ook? is the perfect read-aloud for the giggling masses who love Hervé Tullet’s Press Here, Lane Smith’s It’s a Book!, and BJ Novak’s The Book With No Pictures.

The Books That Drive Kids CRAZY! series offers parents, teachers, and storytellers a hilarious script for fun reading time with children. In Book 3, This Book Is Red, something is clearly bonkers when the narrator insists that frogs and penguins are obviously the same color as lobsters–and the claims get more outrageous from there. What is up with this nonsense? Kids will demand to know–and all readers will be howling with laughter all along the way. With strikingly simple text and art, Books That Drive Kids CRAZY! are ideal picks for emergent readers.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I've read the first two books in this series and sort of enjoyed them, but this one really rubbed me the wrong way. If you insist on reading this kiddie gaslighting garbage to your kids, make sure they've had an eye exam first to check for colourblindness. I can only imagine how confusing this book would be for people with the condition.

Instead of seeming silly and fun, this book bordered on abusive for me. Telling kids over and over that green and yellow and purple are actually red, and then breaking out the "I'm the grown-up. What I say goes" crap just gave me shivers. If kids have experienced gaslighting, this could potentially cause upset and confusion. ("They are red because I said so!" Ugh.) Even the play on the words "red" and "read" at the end couldn't save this for me.

I'm not sure why this book bothered me. The first two didn't irk me nearly so much. Maybe the gimmick is getting old. In any case, I can't recommend this one at all.

Premise: 1/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 2/5
Illustrations: 2/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 0/5

Overall: 1.33 out of 5