Eat Up, Gemma - Hardcover

Sarah Hayes is the author of many books for children, including the This Is the Bear quartet and Mary, Mary, both illustrated by Helen Craig and The Grumpalump. Sarah lives with her family in Thame, Oxfordshire. Jan Ormerod won the Mother Goose Award for her first book and has gone on to illustrate over sixty picture books. She has won many awards and has seen her books published in twenty-one countries. Born in Australia, Jan now lives in Cambridge, UK.

PreS Gemma of Happy Christmas, Gemma (Lothrop, 1986) returns in another story told by her bemused and inventive older brother. Here she's going through that frustrating (for parents) stage of being unwilling to eat anything. She throws her breakfast on the floor, and she bangs her spoon instead of eating with it. Finally, she becomes fascinated, while at church, with the artificial fruit on the hat of the woman who sits in front of the family, which gives her older brother an idea. As before, the text does not imply race, but Ormerod extends Hayes' witty prose with warm and lively illustrations of a black family dealing with a common problem, thus adding her own dimension to the story. Gemma, as before, is a lovable creation: stretching, banging, reaching, and conveying with every line the lively curiosity of her age group. When she finally begins to eat, no one is more thrilled than Gemma, last seen triumphantly flourishing a banana. This story sustains the first book's depiction of a warm and loving family, sometimes frustrated but always willing to understand and care for its youngest member. Christine Behrmann, New York Public Library
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