Yum! Yuck! A Foldout Book of People Sounds
PreSchool-Grade 3–In this follow-up toMung-Mung: A Foldout Book of Animal Sounds(Charlesbridge, 2004), Park and Durango present the sounds people make to express such things as distaste, laughter, and surprise. The outer pages of the foldouts detail people sounds in various languages and dialects, such as Danish, Yoruba, Korean, and Farsi. These words and phrases, surrounded by pastel borders, are accompanied by children expressing these sounds with clear facial expressions and gestures. On the inner pages, the English translation is revealed along with Rama's ink, watercolor, and crayon illustrations of these youngsters enacting a scenario that would prompt a yuck, yum, or yikes response. Younger children may need help to understand some of the scenes, particularly why an overturned spice cart causes the children's yummy ice cream to turn yucky. The final pages include an authors' note on the difficulty of translating people sounds as well as the origins of the lesser-known languages. This original offering is a delightful addition to the canon of multicultural picture books and a fun read-aloud guessing game.–Rachel G. Payne, Brooklyn Public Library, NYCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.