The Last Peach

by Gus Gordon, Gus Gordon (Illustrator)

Overview

Gus Gordon's The Last Peach is the story of two indecisive bugs contemplating eating the last peach of the summer in a hilarious picture book about anticipation and expectation.

Summer’s almost over, and there’s one peach left.
There’s also one big question in the air: Should someone eat it?
What if it’s rotten inside?
But what if it’s juicy?
Should the bug who saw it first get to eat it?
Should both bugs share it with their friends?

Will anyone eat the peach?! EVER?!?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626723504
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	05/21/2019
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	682,212
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.30(d)
Lexile:	390L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Gus Gordon is an Australian born writer and illustrator of books for small people and older people who like small people’s books. Gus lives with his wife and three kids on the Northern beaches of Sydney. He is also the author ofHerman and Rosie, about which Booklist, in a starred review, said "not since Petra Mathers’ Sophie and Lou (1991) has a picture book, the arts, and romance converged so charmingly."Somewhere Else is his second book with Roaring Brook Press.

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/25/2019

This existential meditation by Gordon (Herman and Rosie) deals with some big questions. Two wide-eyed insects contemplate a red-orange globe that hangs suspended amid green leaves. “Oh my,” one exclaims. “Now THAT is a fine peach!” They begin the discussion agreeably enough (“Let’s eat it. At once!”), but as others weigh in (“You can’t eat that peach!”), attitudes shift to anxiety (“We would probably... get big tummy aches”), then to fantasy (“What if we ate it and could suddenly do magical things?”) before spiraling into frank conflict: “ ‘That is MY peach!’ ‘No, it’s MY peach!’ ” Gordon composes leafy collage-style spreads in paper accented with snippets of vintage French type. The insects bear more than a passing resemblance to the clowns in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot; one has a hat and a curling proboscis, while the other sports antennae and a red schnozz. In the wistful ending, the two friends decide that the object of their desire is too beautiful to eat, denying themselves the pleasure they’ve been anticipating all along. And after they leave, another surprise awaits readers. Some desires, this sly fable suggests, may be founded on illusion. Ages 4–8. (May)

Publishers Weekly

*"Luscious, light, and thought-provoking: decidedly not to be missed!"—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

*"Some desires, this sly fable suggests, may be founded on illusion."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

From the Publisher

05/01/2019

PreS-Gr 2—In this picture book charmer, two insects spot a beautiful peach. They want to eat it, but a praying mantis announces that it is the last peach of the season. Another bug says it looks good, but it could be rotten inside. If they ate it, would they feel sick? The two main insects argue and debate, each one getting a different text font color to make the conversation parts clear. Is the peach magic? Should they share it with others? Perhaps write it an admiring poem? When they get into a physical fight over which one of them should claim it, they declare themselves unworthy, and then leave the peach alone. After they depart, the final image reveals a twist. The glowing orb they have been admiring is actually the sun, positioned so it appears to hang on a tree branch. The collage illustrations are made up of many different colors and types of paper that include words in French, while the end pages depict several varieties of peaches in a luscious photorealistic style. VERDICT Use with Du Iz Tak? and James and the Giant Peach to discuss conflict resolution or for a plant-themed storytime.—Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA

School Library Journal

★ 2019-02-13

Two motley insects contemplate eating the last peach of the season.

Gordon presents children with a timeless, rather adult dilemma: how to act in the face of irresistible temptation. Here, two thumb-shaped flylike creatures—one dressed in a Homburg hat and blue-and-white-striped body suit, the other in a red print shirt—encounter a sumptuous peach, rosy and golden as the setting sun, still on the branch, and begin to discuss its merits. "It's the most beautiful peach I've seen ALL summer," says the bug dressed in blue. "Wouldn't you agree?" "I do agree," responds the red-shirted friend: "In fact, it's the most beautiful peach I've seen in ALL the summers." The two quickly decide they "must eat that peach at once," but with one page turn, a venerable praying mantis, clad in top hat and cane, stops them, warning: "You can't eat that peach! It's the last peach of the season." In delightfully clever double-page spreads, the two friends then go back and forth, hilariously debating whether to devour the peach together or alone, to share it with others or to leave it entirely. Gordon's witty, collagelike mixed-media illustrations and spare, dialogue-only text not only get at the gnarly pit of indecision—serving up provocative behavioral binaries such as impulsivity versus reflection, indulgence versus sacrifice, hoarding versus sharing—but offer a surprise ending as well.

Luscious, light, and thought-provoking: decidedly not to be missed! (Picture book. 3-8)

Kirkus Reviews