Eat Together

Toddler-PreS--Inviting text and winsome cardboard collage illustrations come together in an appealing food-themed guessing game. Readers are presented with a set of deconstructed shapes and invited to predict the food they will form once the page is turned. Each item (strawberry, cupcake, lettuce, hamburger, turkey, pizza) once put together is promptly carried away by ants, who at the end of the book must break their snacks back down into individual shapes, carry them piece by piece through the narrow mouth of their anthill, and reassemble them underground to create a wacky feast of avant-garde food piles. Children will relish the enterprising ant characters and the winning interactive component. VERDICT This generous graphic concept book will benefit all collections.

As an ant feast is constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed in this foodie exploration of quantity and design, Ordóñez's flatly colored, digitally assembled illustrations demonstrate the way shapes come together to make images. Establishing the concept, the first recto presents three atypical shapes; a page turn later, these components are combined into a strawberry. Accompanying interrogative text encourages interactivity as an increasing number of pieces, building up to eight, create more elaborate edibles ("What do 4 shapes make?// A cupcake!"). On each completing spread's recto page, hungry ants escort the comestibles off-page, eventually joining up in a march toward their anthill, where a small entrance necessitates taking everything back apart. The counting involves some confusing quirks--three cupcake sprinkles are counted as one item, and some of the pizza toppings multiply when appearing on a slice--but the final smorgasbord nevertheless amuses with a vision of remixed dishes. Ages 1-3. (Nov.)