jeavinl's Full Review: Leo Landry - Eat Your Peas, Ivy Louise
My daughter is a very picky eater. I have been trying all sorts of methods to get her to eat some vegetables. I figured “brainwashing” her with some library books about veggies might help the war. Based solely on the title, I picked out this book and brought it home. What a mistake.
The basics
Ivy Louise is a young toddler who sits in her highchair and plays with her food. In this quirky flight-of-fancy picture book, her peas become animated and put on a sort of circus as they tumble and roll across her highchair tray. They form a pyramid, they splash into the girl’s sippy cup, and they weightlift with her Oatey-O’s. Their final act is a dramatic spoon catapult out the window, helped along by Ivy Louise, who then exclaims, “All gone” to her Mama and Papa.
My thoughts
Where do I begin? Yes, I understand the need for cute books that show how kids really are, but this picture book is clearly aimed at children older than Ivy Louise who should not be encouraged to throw their food around. Playing with your food, when done right, is a good thing. For instance, we watch the PBS Sprout network and have made some of the kid-friendly recipes they highlight, including a car out of an apple and berries. But do I really want to encourage my daughter to do something she, thankfully, never did as a baby?
While the peas are cute little green “people,” I’m not sure my daughter consciously got the fact that the acrobatics they were performing were actually done with Ivy Louise’s help. So it sort of made them scary to her that the peas came to life. When I offered her peas shortly after reading this book, she was even more against the idea than usual and kept repeating, “no, no, no.” I’m still not sure that was related to the book since she goes through stages, but it did happen shortly after we read it. Seeing Ivy Louise propel a spoonful of peas out the window made my Mommy alert go off. They soar out the window saying “good-bye” to the little girl, which makes the whole episode seem endearing but a little too much so. I don’t want my little girl setting her peas free. The fact that she gets away with it makes me even more panicky. Mom and Dad tell her “Good girl” after she tells them all her peas are gone.
The illustrations are cute but nothing special. They have a sort of simple black-line outline to them and there are lots of solid backgrounds to the pages. The peas have smiley faces and little arms and legs poking out of them.
Overall impression
Don’t be fooled by the title like I was. This toddler fantasy book will encourage food everywhere sooner than it will encourage food in your child’s mouth.
Eat Your Peas, Ivy Louise!
Written and illustrated by Leo Landry
Published by Houghton Mifflin in 2005
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