  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 05/15/2018 Every fruit is welcome to the fruit-bowl party: peach, apple, grape, and tomato! Wait—tomato? Pepper’s not buying it: “You’re being kind of saucy.” Neither is banana: “You’ll have to split.” But Tomato is armed with evidence, and after gathering the dubious fruits together, he lectures them on how they all began as flowers. Furthermore, not all fruit is sweet; some are tangy, tart, or sour. Finally, in the book’s funniest turn, the fruits journey to wise, wrinkled Old Man Produce. It’s a plum who, like some mystic sage, asks philosophical questions like “If the tomato is not a fruit, is he not delicious?” Duly convinced, the fruits’ final shock is the sudden cavalcade of other fruits they didn’t know about: a squash, a pickle, a zucchini, and more. Hoffmann brings the foods to life with big, bright, often extreme close-up illustrations, with all-cap hand-lettering adding to the emphatic vibe. No doubt kids will learn a thing or two, and have some light chuckles along the way. - Copyright 2018 Booklist. School Library Journal - 06/01/2018 PreS-Gr 1—A disgraced tomato relegated to the crisper tries to convince readers that tomatoes are fruits. After his attempt to climb into the fruit bowl is foiled, a disappointed tomato uses logic, an X-ray, and, eventually, the wisdom of Old Man Produce to convince the audience that tomatoes really are fruits. When he regains his rightful place in the fruit bowl, tomato introduces some other vegetables that are actually fruits in disguise. An imaginative and entertaining reimagination of the relatively dull task of putting away the groceries and a thinly veiled "Tomatoes are Fruits" PSA. The anthropomorphized fruit are rendered in thick gouache paint on the bright kitchen background with simple but expressive faces and wiggly arms. The story is best enjoyed one-on-one as the text is conveyed entirely through word bubbles and readers will enjoy finding the puns, subtle and otherwise, that are sprinkled liberally throughout. VERDICT An a-peel-ing addition with lots of curricular connections. For larger collections.—Laken Hottle, Providence Community Library - Copyright 2018 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
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