Bananas in My Ears: A Collection of Nonsense Stories, Poems, Riddles, and Rhymes (review)

Four related books by British Children’s Laureate Rosen, previously published only in Britain, are here compiled into a single anthology. Each section has six or seven entries, several of them recurring: “Nat and Anna,” stories about a little boy and his older sister; “What If . . .,” musing free-verse poems about nonsensical possibilities; and “Things We Say,” a full-spread scene or series of vignettes with speech balloons providing the only text. While some entries are stronger than others, there’s an easygoing childlike silliness throughout (the “What If . . .” meanderings will particularly ring true), and Rosen’s poetry evinces a gently rollicking rhythm that gives a nursery-rhyme lilt to the verses (“Down at the doctor’s/ where everybody goes,/ there’s a fat black dog/ with messy missy toes . . .”). Blake’s well-loved line and watercolor scrawls effectively complement his familiar speedy, amusing thumbnails with occasional larger and more immersive full-page visions. This offers the charm of selection to youngsters, who will enjoy instructing their adults which entry to read aloud and choosing whether to follow a particular strand throughout or to happen upon it in sequence. A detailed table of contents helps searchers find where they’re going.