by Linda Sue Park
co-authored by Julie Durango
illustrated by Sue Ramá
Charlesbridge, 2005
Language: English
paperback: 978-1570916595
board book: 978-1623543341
36 pages, ages 2-7
Yum! Yuck! A Foldout Book of People Sounds
At a busy street market, kids eating ice cream exclaim, “Yum!” in English, “Geshmak!” in Yiddish, and “Nam-nam!” in Danish. But disaster strikes when a little dog overturns a spice cart, showering pepper on everyone’s ice cream. Will the kids end up crying, “Hai hai,” or cheering, “¡Yupi!”? Energetic art and a lift-the-flap feature make exploring languages fun.
Collage Art
Recognition
2006 ALA Notable Book for Children
2006 Bank Street Best Children’s Books of the Year
2006 Connecticut Book Award Finalist
2006 CCBC Choices
2006 Kansas State Reading Circle Recommendation
2006 NCTE/CLA Notable Children’s Book in the Language Arts
Reviews
“In this follow-up to Mung-Mung: A Foldout Book of Animal Sounds, 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 Rama's ink, watercolor, and crayon illustrations of these youngsters 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 the lesser-known languages. This original offering is a delightful addition to the canon of multicultural picture books and a fun read-aloud guessing game.”
“Park follows Mung-Mung: A Foldout Book of Animal Sounds 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.”
