The Veggiecational Book

Children's Literature - Dr. Judy Rowen

Let me begin by saying I adore the Veggie Tales video series, in fact, I own every one created thus far and anxiously await the next one. The Veggies are brilliantly animated 3-D characters who populate a series of children's videos grounded in biblical truth. Unfortunately, these delightful characters do not transfer well to the static medium of print. This book is a compendium of four Veggie Tales educational books, teaching numbers, colors, shapes and letters. Of the four, Pa Grape's Shapes is the most successful. Pa Grape wants new tires and isn't sure what shape they should be. This story does not require previous knowledge of the characters and the absurd humor of square or triangular tires will amuse the target audience. Bob and Larry's ABC's has some misguided moments, e.g. having Larry the Cucumber represent the letter "C" for cucumber while having a large "L" perched on his head. This could only confuse children just learning the letters. There are many inside jokes here, for instance, "H" has Larry looking for his hairbrush, which is from one of the uproarious "Silly Songs with Larry" from the video series. As the hairbrush is not seen, there is no actual object representing the letter in question. Similar missteps are seen in How Many Veggies, in which a parrot appears but does not "count" in the tally of characters and in Junior's Colors, where Junior's cap is labeled yellow but appears nearly orange. My advice: skip the books, buy the videos.