FICTION

And What if I Won't?

by Maureen FERGUS
And What if I Won't? illus. by Qin Leng. 32p. Owlkids. 2015. Tr $17.95. ISBN 9781771470650.
COPY ISBN
PreS-Gr 2—When Benny's mother asks him to put his plate in the sink, the boy wants to know "what would you do it I said no?" The imaginative chain of cause-and-effect gets wilder and wilder as Benny quizzes his mother about how she'd respond to a rapidly escalating sequence of misbehavior. Benny's hypothetical high jinks seem more mean-spirited than mischievous; he smashes plates, taunts baby penguins, ties lions' tails together, and yells bad words. Some readers may be taken aback by the mother's professed willingness to give her son to the zoo or sell him to the circus. Ably executed pastel-toned illustrations show a smug-faced mother and son in increasingly fantastical situations.
VERDICT Some children may enjoy the outlandish naughtiness and far-fetched consequences. Many readers will find Benny's hypothetical misbehavior disagreeable, and his mother's responses unsettling.
Reviewed by Rachel Anne Mencke, St. Matthew's Parish School, Pacific Palisades, CA
Young readers and listeners will be entertained by this increasingly outlandish exchange of "what if?" between mother and son. What starts as a simple request ("Benny, please put your plate in the sink.") becomes a fun example of collaborative storytelling. Benny's mother encourages Benny's imagination as she matches each of his questions ("What would you do if the ringmaster showed up at the front door and said he'd had enough of me?") with equally playful responses: "I'd do the only thing a loving mother can do when her son is being so monstrously naughty that even a circus won't keep him . . . I'd send you to the moon." Qin Leng's atmospheric artwork enhances the humor of Benny's hypothetical situations.
, Sep 01, 2015

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