Named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2016!
A Mississippi Clarion-Ledger best seller!
Miéville and Smith's dialogue is fantastic: witty, smart, with great
rhythm that doesn't sacrifice artful turns of phrase to reach for an
internal rhyme...Smith's artwork keeps pace with the text, which the
artist sets into little rectangles to contrast with the jaggedly
flamboyant paintings that get increasingly manic as the girl goes on,
incorporating tentacles and pterodactyls as well as piled-high
foodstuffs...This should be in the hands of all kids who aren't easily
satiated by tamer picture books and who would engage with a real work of
art that they can revisit over and over. None of the artwork is too
gross to behold, even for the squeamish, but it does perfectly
illustrate the culinary horrors the girl is trying to convey to her
sister. A brilliant, original, infinitely rereadable book that can sit
alongside Sendak and Dahl.
--Kirkus Reviews, Starred review
Miéville lets it rip in this stomping, howling rant about a bad meal of
legendary proportions . . . Punk artist Smith's neatly framed dialogue
boxes and crisp black contours have a buttoned-up look, but no:
tentacles wave from inside bowls, monsters smile amid mountains of vile
sausages, and a blue alien juggles cherry tomatoes. As the pages turn,
the towers of bad food grow ever loftier. In the end, a simple tea
strainer saves the sisters from another terrible meal. This one's for
families enamored of new words, exotic foods, and strong opinions.
--Publishers Weekly
Miéville, known for his genre-defying fantasy novels for adults, makes a
splash with his picture book debut. Smith's illustrations, filled with
geometric shapes and patterns, are the perfect complement to the
text...This is a subversive delight.
--School Library Journal
Deftly written by the exceptionally talented China Miéville and
shockingly but gifted illustrated by Zak Smith, The Worst Breakfast is
a unique picture book that will be enduringly popular...Very highly
recommended.
--Midwest Book Review
This is a child's imagination come to life, where a good thing can be
the greatest thing in existence and a minor inconvenience snowballs into
the most horrendous, atrocious, appalling, not good, very bad meal
you've ever had.
--San Francisco Book Review
Imaginative and fun, The Worst Breakfast is perfect for any picky
eater out there. A rhyming scheme and inventive text kept up the giggles
and the pace. The text is best read aloud going along with all of the
suggestions, with emphasis placed on capitalized words and pauses
between syllables when they are spaced out. The illustrations are very
different than what you typically see in children's books; they are
bright and fun, but edgier and begged to be looked at deeper. You can
spend time on each page trying to find each food and a series of silly
little monsters.
--100 Pages a Day
This book is just too much fun to read by yourself . . . This will be a
storytime mainstay for me. This would be great for a food storytime . .
. I was reminded of Sendak . . . This is a fun tale that's sure to get
the kids interacting during a storytime. If you've got readers who enjoy
gross humor - and who doesn't? - this will build their vocabularies and
make them howl with disgusted delight.
--Mom Read It
Part of Akashic's Black Sheep imprint.
Two sisters sit down one morning and begin describing all of the really
gross things that were in the worst breakfast they ever had, until all
they can picture is a table piled sky-high with the weirdest, yuckiest,
slimiest, slickest, stinkiest breakfast possible. And then they have the
best breakfast... almost.
