Read, Read, Read, said the Baby: Allie's Garden by Sabra Chebby, illustrated by Marla Osborn

This sweet little board book reminded me of Juana Medina's 1 Big Salad which mixes photographs of vegetables with pen and ink drawings. Osborn and Chebby, however, have created a cute story that is all their own.

Allie, a sweet little girl in pigtails and jumper, goes out to the garden to collect vegetables. But this is no ordinary garden! The corn towers over Allie, a tomato is bigger than her head, and she barely see over a lettuce. Not only that, there are creatures in the garden; a carrot fox, zucchini snake, and pink potato rabbit all want their share. Allie shoes them away, and returns home with her basket full of vegetables, just right for her mom to make her a salad.

I thought the illustrations were super cute, but they also really confused me. Allie is miniature, the creatures are all made out of vegetables but are also eating them? Somehow when Allie picks the vegetables they miniaturize into her basket. The rhyming text is fine, but not particularly outstanding, "I was pulling up lettuce/and happened to see/a floppy eared bunny/sniff, sniffing at me."

Verdict: I would have been interested in this as a picture book. The dimensions of the art will confuse babies and toddlers and older children will be just as confused by the lack of explanation for the changes in size and why the vegetable animals are...eating themselves? A cute idea and will probably circulate, but most of interest to places that have a lot of gardeners.

ISBN: 9781936669530; Published 2017 by blue manatee press; Borrowed from another library in my consortium