02/25/2016
"Uh Oh!" by Shutta Crum
Copyright 2015 (32 pages)
Realistic fiction

This is my first almost-wordless picture book. There is, apparently, a lot more to reading than just processing text. This book leaves a lot to be read even with only one word every other page (or so): "uh oh!". This makes sense, because the children in the book are only toddlers. I kind of want to say it's an older girl and a younger boy, but really their character design is pretty androgynous. Maybe not so much with the child wearing the orange swimsuit - because those frills look like a skirt - but in general, there's no definite clue to the children's gender. The 'girl' wearing the orange swimsuit, for example, don't have long eyelashes or wearing a flower-shaped hairpin. The other child, whom I assume to be a boy just because of the color of the pants, is wearing a broad sun hat so we can't judge by hair style. At one point in the book, the hat got blown by the wind and we see that the child has a short hair. But then again, so is every child at that age. That said, I'm curious how many readers would immediately go: "Aha! A boy! I was right!" at that point in the story.

When I asked my professor for a book recommendation, she noted that she liked Uh-oh! because it has a lot of unexplained details we can discuss. One thing she noted was that the children are being watched by two women. There's an implication that these women are their mothers, but then again there's no explanation. So anyone can draw any conclusions. Maybe the children are not siblings after all. Maybe they're cousins. Maybe they're just neighbors. Why is it that we immediately assume they're on a family trip anyway? It's interesting to see what sort of assumptions people can come up with reading this book. Aside from that, the story is fun, simple and easy to follow. Hats off to Patrice Barton for her beautiful drawings.