The Nonsense Show

by Eric Carle, Eric Carle (Illustrator)

Overview

Silliness takes center stage in this laugh-out-loud book from the creator of The Very Hungry Caterpillar—now available as a board book!
 
Yes, there’s something strange, something funny and even downright preposterous on every page of this book. But it’s not a mistake – it’s nonsense! Nonsense lies at the heart of many beloved nursery rhymes. Children readily accept odd statements like “the cow jumped over the moon” and “the dish ran away with the spoon.” This fanciful bending of reality is also basic to surrealism.

In this book, nonsense and surrealism combine to spark creativity and imagination. What’s true? What’s impossible? What’s absolutely absurd? From Eric Carle, creator of the classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, comes a book to make children laugh and think, preparing them for a lifetime of loving both words and art.

Praise for The Nonsense Show

A TIME Magazine Top 10 Children's Book of 2015!

* "Carle creates fun and laughter in this homage to the surrealist artist René Magritte. [P]erfect for storytimes and silly times all round. Carle hits it out of the nonsense park!"–Booklist, starred review

* "A sure hit as a read-aloud and a definite purchase for picture book collections."–School Library Journal, starred review

* "A picture book made to incite pleasure and joy."–Kirkus Reviews, starred review

* "[The Nonsense Show], with its cleanly designed white pages, makes the unexpected elements of the imagery stand out and prompts questions and wonder."–Horn Book, starred review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399176883
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	02/07/2017
Pages:	38
Sales rank:	453,197
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 3 Years

About the Author

Eric Carle is acclaimed and beloved as the creator of brilliantly illustrated and innovatively designed picture books for very young children. His best-known work, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, has been translated into 70 languages and sold over 55 million copies. Carle illustrated more than seventy books, many best sellers, most of which he also wrote, and more than 170 million copies of his books have sold around the world. In 2003, Carle received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (now called the Children’s Literature Legacy Award) for lifetime achievement in children's literature. In 2002, Eric and his wife, Barbara, cofounded The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (www.carlemuseum.org) in Amherst, Massachusetts, a 40,000-square-foot space dedicated to the celebration of picture books and picture book illustrations from around the world, underscoring the cultural, historical, and artistic significance of picture books and their art form. Eric Carle passed away in May 2021 at the age of 91. His work remains an important influence on artists and illustrators at work today. www.eric-carle.com

Hometown:

Northampton, Massachusetts and the Berkshires

Date of Birth:

June 25, 1929

Place of Birth:

Syracuse, New York

Education:

Akademie der bildenden Künste, Stuttgart, 1946-50

Website:

http://www.eric-carle.com/

Editorial Reviews

A TIME Magazine Top 10 Children's Book of 2015!

* "Carle creates fun and laughter in this homage to the surrealist artist René Magritte. [P]erfect for storytimes and silly times all round. Carle hits it out of the nonsense park!"–Booklist, starred review

* "A sure hit as a read-aloud and a definite purchase for picture book collections."–School Library Journal, starred review

* "A picture book made to incite pleasure and joy."–Kirkus Reviews, starred review

* "[The Nonsense Show], with its cleanly designed white pages, makes the unexpected elements of the imagery stand out and prompts questions and wonder."–Horn Book, starred review

From the Publisher

07/20/2015
Carle delivers a carnival of pictorial and rhyming jokes, illustrated in chunky painted paper collage and dedicated to surrealist painter René Magritte and The Treachery of Images, with its famous jest, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (Carle previously explored Expressionism in The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse and abstract art in Friends). The first spread pictures a rabbit magician pulling a boy out of a hat: “Welcome friends!/ Don’t be slow./ Step right up to/ The Nonsense Show!” Each spread stands alone, sometimes striking an apt silly note (a small gray mouse is seen holding a much larger cat by a leash) and sometimes falling flat when the rhymes do not scan or the jokes are middling (“Could a leopard/ Change his spot/ To a tiger-ish stripe?/ Probably not”). The funniest moments involve topsy-turvy situations, as when a lion ringmaster tames human acrobats or when a woman swings her racquet at a zooming green fruit: “What a funny-looking ball/ Thought the tennis ace/ And wound up/ With applesauce/ In her face.” Despite a few hiccups, it’s kid-pleasing silliness through and through. Ages 3–7. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2015-07-22
The celebrated picture-book artist enthusiastically joins the nonsense tradition. Carle's nearly 50-year career has produced myriad concept books about counting, the alphabet, and colors, as well as simple, original stories, retellings of fairy tales, and picture books that push the physical boundaries of the form. This latest proves that Carle can reinvent himself as a creator in the field, as he now revels in the absurd, eschewing any pretense of teaching a concept or even engaging with story. Instead, spread after spread uses nonsensical text and sublimely ridiculous pictures to provoke laughter and head-shaking delight. In addition to the book's title, art immediately cues the book's silly tone: the cover displays one of Carle's signature collages against an empty white background; it depicts a duckling emerging from a peeled-back banana peel. The title-page art presents a deer sprouting flowers rather than antlers from its head. When the book proper begins, and language joins illustration, readers are ushered into a series of situations and scenarios that upend expectations and play with conventions. "Ouch! Who's that in my pouch?" asks a kangaroo with a little blond child instead of a joey in her pouch. Another scene shows two snakes, joined at the middle and looking for their respective tails. A picture book made to incite pleasure and joy. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews