Earth Space Moon Base

May 26, 2014
British artist Price (Love Bites) mixes polished draftsmanship, the eerie loneliness of outer space, and an unusual team of astronauts in his first book for children. Limiting himself to a palette of cool gray-blues accented with orange and yellow (until the green and purple aliens show up, that is), Price pans across the desolate lunar setting. Readers are led down a long ladder—“Open the hatch/ Down we go”—where a spaceman, monkey and robot load a flying saucer with boxes of bananas. The robot trains a camera on a deep crater, and the monkey ventures out with a space hose, spraying bananas around the crater’s mouth. What are the bananas meant to do? “Then, all of a sudden, something shoots out!/ Tentacles squirm and thrash about!” This is official lunar policy, apparently; the lumpy aliens are kept at bay with regular doses of bananas: “Sleepy and full, the creatures retreat./ They’ve all had far too much to eat.” The contrast between the deadpan, highly technical spreads and the Monty Pythonesque humor will keep listeners riveted—and giggling. Ages 3–7. Agent: Isabel Atherton, Creative Authors.

June 15, 2014
Have you ever wondered why there are so many bananas on the moon?A squat, orange contraption, reminiscent of an old-fashioned scuba helmet, sits amid the moon's craters. It is a secret base. The hatch creaks open, and readers meet a "spaceman," a robot and a "cheeky monkey" (the British slang is fun to say, but the monkey doesn't have much personality, cheeky or otherwise). It is the job of these three brave individuals to protect the Earth from an alien invasion. Their weapon of choice? Bananas. Extraterrestrials with bulging eyes, slippery tentacles and spiky fur slither out from a crater. Bananas are the only thing that will keep them happy (and full). Employing a controlled palette of stark black, white, orange and gray-with, of course, important accents of yellow, purple and green-the retro illustrations carry the story through some rough rhymes. (Even for slant rhyme, "one" and "gone" is a tough sell.) Paint-splattered stars and a robotic typeface add to the far-flung galactic flair. The concluding page hints, with the addition of a simple question mark, that the aliens may not be content for long.Price's debut falters a bit in engagement and energy, but visually? Out of this world. (Picture book. 3-6)

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August 1, 2014
Preschool-G The clipped title of this picture-book debut sets up the rhyming pattern of the rest of the story: Open the hatch. Down we go. . . . / Where does it end? Soon we'll know. Where we're going is, well, a space base, where our heroic crew a spaceman, a robot, and a cheeky monkey! are packing their saucer for a space trip of undescribed purpose. Price uses disorientation to his advantage, constantly showing puzzling activities, being cagey about what's being depicted, and often seeming as baffled as the reader: Monkey is sent out to explore. / Why he's dropping bananas, we're not quite sure. There is an explanation, though, as the robotic, straight-edged, silver-heavy illustrations at last give way to a burst of colora rippling, tentacled, multi-eyed horde of alien beasts crawling from a crater. It's actually a tad scary, but all ends well: the bananas are to sate the beasts so that they don't eat people. Bonus: the book ends with pictures and descriptions of each alien, from Snoolab to Kroblit to Voog.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)