Thursday, July 29, 2010

1000 Times NO As Told By Mr.Warburton

Title: 1000 Times No
Author/Illustrator: Mr.Warburton
Publisher: Laura Geringer Books, An imprint of Harper Collins Publishers
Ages: 3+

At some point of time, all parents would have witnessed their child telling no. After the NO, comes the power struggles and the temper tantrums. It is an universal phenomenon and experts console parents saying that they are witnessing the terrible twos and that it shall pass .....in to tremendously terrifying threes, frightening fours, frustrating fives, shocking six..... my amma swears that I am going through a tiresome thirty three phase right now and is waiting with all toes and fingers crossed for ‘my phase’ to get over. The phases are a complicated play of wanting to establish an identity and earning respect and approval. The best thing for a parent to do is to step back and realize that they are not alone. The very thought that zillions of parents, irrespective of time or culture are going through the same thing at the same time gives immense strength and patience.

This is the gist of the book beautifully conceptualized and illustrated by Mr.Warburton. Little Noah is sitting wearing his diaper and playing. In comes mommy and says that it is time to leave. Even before she explains where, Noah says no, not once not twice, but a 1000 times.

no..NO...reverse-no-on, grumpy-mad-gritting his teeth-NO, cool-come-on-make-me-NO, big-72-point-bold-no, No-way-jose, nooope. He proceeds to say no in russian, greek, hindi, old norse, chinese, inuit, tagalog, sign language etc. Little Noah is so innovative that he says no in creative ways such as using the carrots and peas his dinner plate to spell out no!, as skywriting, he texts no, morse code(dah dit dah dah dah -. ---).

If you think it is hilarious, you must look at Noah’s face when his mom shrugs her shoulders and says, ‘Ok, fine. If you don’t want to go to the PLAYGROUND, you can stay here.’ :)

Found the whole book as an animation here.

7 comments:

Choxbox said...

ROFL! Wont say NO (in any language) if you get us this book!

starry eyed said...

This one was written for my son, NO mistake about that :P Talk about power struggles! Loved the review, thanks!

sandhya said...

LOL at 'tiresome thirty-three'! Next in line, Chox. I won't say NO either. Not even in the frustrating forties!
Great review, Utbt.

ranjani.sathish said...

Utbt...had me smiling at your mother's comment :-). My daughter will love that there is someone like her who seems to be always ready for a fight with their mother ;-)

Shankari said...

As said in your blog, Na loved this book when I read it out to her. She was fascinated to note that there were so many ways she could say her favourite word!

Thanks for sharing the video :)

Sheela said...

Read this after your reco on my post, utbtkids, and I must say, it is quite an interesting book with such a simple concept - nice to know how to say 'No' in all these languages, eh?!

I particularly liked that the book includes Pig Latin (which Ana and her Dad talk at home so Oggie doesn't catch on) and the Robotic "Negative" - the tinny electronic tone is used a lot in our house when dad and daughter turn themselves into robots and walk with stiff movements, pretending to ignore my 'commands' :)

Choxbox said...

Most amazing, hilarious, adorable book I’ve seen in a while!
Loved the conductor at the end and the subtle poke at why the baby goes ‘nangu-mangu’ in the end (there must have been another round of NOs!)

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