The Last Peach by Gus Gordon

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Last Peach by Gus Gordon Deborah Stevenson, Editor Gordon, Gus The Last Peach; written and illus. by Gus Gordon. Roaring Brook, 2019 [40p] ISBN 978-1-62672-350-4 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 1-2 Two friendly insects perch on a leaf to marvel at a blushing orange orb hanging amid the tree branches, and they decide they should eat the beautiful peach. Then a sententious top-hatted mantis says no: "You can't eat that peach! It's the last peach of the season!" They decide to go ahead anyway, but another bug says it's probably rotten inside, so they're dissuaded again. And so they go, back and forth between planning to eat it and deciding not to, on the way writing a poem for the peach, contemplating sharing the fruit with friends (and rejecting that notion), and arguing over which of them should have the peach. Eventually they decide "It is too beautiful for us" and fly off, and then the sinking orange globe reveals itself to be the setting sun. It's the color-coded, staccato back and forth verbiage between the insects, especially our main duo, that brings the humor to this odd and original story; while youngsters will recognize the battle between impulse and self-restraint, they'll find it especially funny in the crisp sparseness of the entomological exchanges here. The airy cream pages and focused insect action in the illustrations recall Ellis' Du Iz Tak (BCCB 12/16), but Gordon adds a dimension with his collage crafting: period media, almost all in French, sometimes appropriately agricultural and sometimes comically unsuitable, is cut and placed to compose the insects' wings, the leaves, the passing clouds, in compositions where the textual busyness is balanced by smooth digital shapes and negative space. This is like an even more absurd update of Waiting for Godot (Waiting for Peach?), and while some youngsters may need a little prompting to catch the visual joke at the end, they'll relish the badinage whether they're doing the reading themselves or watching an impassioned performance. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois