9 /10 1 Votes
4.8/5 Barnes & Noble Publication date Aug. 21 2012 ISBN 1442402970 LC Class PZ7.R33213 Cre 2012 Page count 40 Awards Caldecott Medal | 4.2/5 Goodreads Language English Pages 40 OCLC 858737867 Originally published 21 August 2012 Illustrator Peter Brown Publisher Simon & Schuster | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Creepy carrots by aaron reynolds
Creepy Carrots! is a 40-page children 's picture book written by Aaron Reynolds and illustrated by Peter Brown. It was published on August 21, 2012 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
Contents
Plot
Jasper Rabbit loved carrots. Especially the carrots that grew in Crackenhooper Field. They were "Fat, Crisp. And Free for the taking" Jasper enjoyed these carrots "on the way to school, on his way to Little League practice and on his way home at night". Jasper just loved his carrots and "couldn't get enough, until they started following him". He first noticed something strange after his Little League game when he stopped at Crackenhopper Field. Then while he was brushing his teeth he saw the creepy carrots, then he even saw them in the shed and on his wall. "By the end of the week Jasper was seeing creepy carrots creeping EVERYWHERE." Jasper then thought up a plan to make sure the carrots couldn't escape,and built a fence and a moat around Crackenhooper Field. Jasper was very pleased with himself "no creepy carrots would get out of that patch again." As the sun set the carrots "cheered. Their plan had worked, Jasper Rabbit would never get into that carrot patch ever again".
Writer
Aaron Reynolds was born on June 4, 1970, and moved often as he grew up. He has lived in Texas, Colorado, Florida, Okinawa and New Jersey; however he currently resides in Chicago, Illinois with his wife and two children. Reynolds graduated with a degree in Theatre from Illinois Wesleyan University.
Illustrator
Peter Brown was born in 1979, raised in New Jersey, and trained at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. His first published book was Flight of the Dodo, which he both wrote and illustrated. It was published in 2005 by Little, Brown, who brought out his second and third books featuring Chowder, an oversize, slobbery pet dog who "never managed to fit in with other neighborhood dogs".
Characters
Reviews
Deborah Stevenson's review of the book Creepy Carrots provides a summary of the story. “Young Jasper has developed the habit of snatching carrots out of the field whenever he passes by it on the way to school, to baseball, to wherever. Suddenly, something strange happens: the carrots begin to follow him wherever he goes, lurking in the dark corners at night (he hears "terrible, carroty breathing") and disappearing before they can be seen by anyone else.” Deborah notes the contrast demonstrated throughout the story, “The book balances menace and absurdity in this strange tale of vegetable stalking, playing up the contrast between the genuinely spooky elements and the unassuming threat.” She also goes into detail about the images in the book. “Glossy black borders and smudgy pencil outlines lightened only by paler gray and set off by the orange of the carrots to provide a smoky Halloween flavor to Brown's nocturnal art, and the scenes are dense with creepy silhouettes and foreboding shadows. Brown meticulously controls his compositions and balances his spreads, often paralleling or mirroring verso and recto or tidily subdividing pages into panels.”
Paul Rodeen reviews the picture book Creepy Carrots!: “Reynolds makes liberal use of ellipses for suspense, conjuring the "soft ... sinister ... tunktunktunk of carrots creeping". Brown illustrates in noirish grayscale with squash-orange highlights and dramatic lighting, framing each panel in shiny black for a claustrophobic film-still effect that cements the story's horror movie feel.”