FICTION

Baby Rube’s Opposites

by Jennifer George (text) & ­illus. by Vin Vogel
Abrams/Appleseed. (A Rube Goldberg Book). May 2023. 24p. Board $16.99. ISBN 9781419759499.
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PreS-K–In a book that folds out to almost seven feet long, opposites are explored. A gray-haired woman has a kettle over a flame for the word “hot” while Baby Rube uses an elaborate machine to be as tall as the ice cube dispenser on the refrigerator door: “cold.” A chicken hatches for “young,” and a hen leans over it adoringly for “old.” “Heavy” is the hippo at one end of the teeter-totter; bespectacled Baby Rube at the other end is “light.” “Fast” is the hamster on the wheel, but “slow” is the turtle aimed at the lettuce leaf?
VERDICT The opposites are muddled, and why this is called a “Rube Goldberg book” is not justified by the arbitrary machinery and actions across several scenes.
Reviewed by Kimberly Olson Fakih , Jul 01, 2023

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