Review - Wonderful You

Wonderful You
by Lisa Graff
illustrated by Ramona Kaulitzki
Date: 2020
Publisher: Philomel Books
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 32
Format: e-book
Source: library

From award-winning author Lisa Graff comes a sweet and poignant picture book that celebrates the arrival of new babies!

Before you were with us, we already knew
that the thing most worth doing was waiting for you.

So begins this warm and loving picture book all about the joy of waiting for a new baby to be born. Month by month, parents and families of all sorts watch the baby-to-be grow, from a sweet pea to a mango and eventually to a pumpkin--until finally, the babies are born as their wonderful little selves.

Perfect for any family expecting a new bundle of joy, this book celebrates the anticipation and happiness that only a baby can bring.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I think we need a category for picture books that are intended for parents. This one, while sweet in its theme, is just plain weird and could be quite confusing to literal-minded children.

Told in rhyme, Wonderful You charts the course of a pregnancy. Along the way, it compares "you" (the developing fetus) with various fruits and vegetables. The problem, though, is not that the book says something like "When you were the size of a lemon." It says "When you were a lemon." How is a child supposed to process that, especially as the fetus keeps morphing into larger and larger footstuffs?

The illustrations are cute and do tie in with the fruit-and-vegetable theme, but since that's super weird, I'm not sure if I like it.

Some children might get a kick out of hearing about how they mutated from a pea all the way to a pumpkin (passing through the stages of fig, eggplant, and pineapple along the way), but others are likely to be confused as to why their mother was growing produce in her womb.

I don't think I'd recommend this one (except maybe to parents who will be old enough to actually get the food metaphors).

Premise: 3/5
Meter: 3/5
Writing: 4/5
Illustrations: 4/5
Originality: 4/5

Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 3.14 out of 5