ALA Notable Children’s Books
Bank Street College of Education’s Best Books of the Year (Outstanding Merit)
Bookbuilders of Boston New England Book Show Winner
CCBC Choices
Nick Jr.’s Best Books of the Year
Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts (NCTE)
Kirkus Reviews
Park follows Mung-Mung: A Foldout Book of Animal Sounds (2004) with an equally international array of human exclamations–in about two dozen tongues, and uttered by a multicultural cast of children depicted on foldout leaves. Placed in a busy marketplace in Ramá’s vigorously drawn, digitally finished watercolors, the children go from simple pleasure to a chorus of dismay–”Oh-gah!” (Yoruba) “Ay!” (Spanish) “Oy!” (Polish) “Oo-wah!” (Japanese) “Yikes!” (English)–when furnished with replacements. English equivalents all come last, and are hidden beneath the folds, which gives young audiences a chance to try out the less familiar sounds while guessing what emotion is being expressed. The authors head off potential cavils by noting at the end that variants, both of expression and of pronunciation, exist within each language. An entertaining companion for its predecessor, or other like-themed titles, such as Hank De Zutter’s Who Says a Dog Goes Bow-Wow? (1992).
School Library Journal
In this follow-up to Mung-Mung: A Foldout Book of Animal Sounds (Charlesbridge, 2004), Park and Durango present the sounds people make to express such things as distaste, laughter, and surprise. The outer pages of the foldouts detail “people sounds” in various languages and dialects, such as Danish, Yoruba, Korean, and Farsi. These words and phrases, surrounded by pastel borders, are accompanied by children expressing these sounds with clear facial expressions and gestures. On the inner pages, the English translation is revealed along with Ramá’s ink, watercolor, and crayon illustrations of these younsters enacting a scenario that would prompt a “yuck,” “yum,” or “yikes” response. Younger children may need help to understand some of the scenes, particularly why an overturned spice cart causes the children’s yummy ice cream to turn yucky. The final pages include an authors’ note on the difficulty of translating “people sounds” as well as the origins of lesser-known languages. This original offering is a delightful addition to the canon of multicultural picture books and a fun read-aloud guessing game.