Pomelo's Opposites, written by Ramona Bădescu, illustrated by Benjamin Chaud
With Pomelo's Opposites, Ramona Bădescu and Benjamin Chaud's charming little pink garden elephant is back! These two have a way with taking something seemingly everyday, like a book of colors or a book of opposites, and making fun and funny and unexpected. We first met Pomelo in Pomelo Begins to Grow, then again in Pomelo Explores Color, which included the "always different yellow of wee-wee," the "mustard-yellow pang that goes up your nose" and the "speeding orange of shredded carrots." There is also the "promising red of ripening strawberries" and the "mysterious blue of dreams." And, like Pomelo, the trim size of these books is small and square and just right for little hands and for tucking next to car seats or into tiny backpacks.
Pomelo's Opposites includes those opposites we usually think of: black and white, far and near, high and low, striped and polka-dotted. Anticipated as they may be, they still manage to takes us by surprise with the creative ways Bădescu and Chaud present them.
However, Pomelo's Opposites really soars when Bădescu and Chaud start thinking outside of the box. Ordinary and extraordinary, possible and impossible, pretend and real, gastropod and cucurbit, convex and concave and my favorite, having and being. This is that extra something that makes these books truly memorable and definitely worth giving.
More Pomelo!
