Once Upon a Banana

Such a little banana causing such a big pile of trouble! How could it be? First the grocer, then the painter, next the bicycle messenger, and then — oh, no — not the baby in the carriage! An entire town turned upside down, all by a banana peel!

Caldecott Medal-winning artist David Small and award-winning author Jennifer Armstrong have created a roller-coaster ride of a picture book told in rhyming street signs that will tickle and delight readers from beginning to end and over and over again.

The New York Times - Jessica Bruder

This rambunctious tale, by Jennifer Armstrong, with illustrations by David Small, is almost wordless but packed with physical comedy. When a monkey escapes from his owner, swipes a banana, then tosses the peel on the sidewalk, it sets off a chain of clumsy chaos that topples townsfolk like dominoes…The characters' facial expressions؏from frustration to befuddlement, anxiety to glee—have a depth and clarity that will be familiar to fans of Small's earlier work, particularly the Caldecott Medal-winning So You Want to Be President? His watercolor panels are full of small, lovely moments…And despite the bedlam in every panel, Small manages to keep the plot clear.

Jennifer Armstrong is the author of numerous award-winning picture books, both historical fiction and nonfiction. Two of her picture books, Hugh Can Do and Chin Yu Min and the Ginger Cat, are ALA Notable Books. Her first novel Steal Away, was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an ALA Notable Book, and a Golden Kite Honor Book, and her novel, The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan is a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book. In 1999 her nonfiction account of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated 1914 voyage, Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance, was awarded the Orbus Pictus as well as a Boston Globe-Horn Book honor. She lives in New York State.

David Small is the Caldecott Award-winning illustrator of So You Want to Be President? by Judith St. George. He received a Caldecott Honor medal for The Gardener by Sarah Stewart. He has also illustrated many other beloved picture books, which include The Library and The Journey, both by Sarah Stewart, and Imogene's Antlers, which he also wrote. He lives in Michigan with his wife, Sarah Stewart.