June 29, 1999 Book

If you liked David Wiesner's surrealistic 1992 Caldecott Medalist Tuesday, then June 29, 1999 will send your spirits soaring like a frog on a flying lily pad. This wacky Wiesner creation chronicles an astonishing cross-country phenomenon on 29 June, 1999. About a month earlier, on 11 May, 1999, young Holly Evans launches vegetable seedlings into the sky from her home in Ho-ho-kus, New Jersey--on seedflats with Acme weather balloons. She expects the plants to stay aloft for a few weeks, allowing her to study the effects of extraterrestrial conditions on their growth and development. On 29 June, 1999, curious things start to happen all over America. A hiker in Montana finds giant turnips in the Rocky Mountains. "Cucumbers circle Kalamazoo. Lima beans loom over Levittown. Artichokes advance on Anchorage". TV news channels announce that arugula has covered Ashtabula, which puzzles Holly, because arugula is not part of her experiment. In fact, she is forced to conclude that none of the enlarged specimen sightings are a result of her initial seedling launch. Where did the giant vegetables come from then? Wiesner waits until the last pages to deliver the punchline. Throughout the book, his visual humour interplays perfectly with the sophisticated, though minimal text: a Mount Rushmore-like scene reveals the faces of Reagan, Bush, Nixon, and Carter carved out of giant potatoes with the caption "Potatoland is wisely abandoned". This beautifully composed ode to absurdity makes us all wish we really could see parsnips over Providence. Prizes won by this book include: 1993 ALA Notable Book, School Library Journal Best Books of 1992, Horn Book's Outstanding Books of the Year, Publishers Weekly 50 Best Books of 1992 and New York Times Notable Books of the Year 1992. (Age 5 and older) --Karin SnelsonRead More