Peanut & Fifi Have a Ball was written by Randall de Seve and illustrated by Paul Schmid. It was published by Dial Books for Young Readers in 2013.
Peanut has a ball and his older sister Fifi wants to play with it. Peanut is selfish and doesn’t want to share even though Fifi tries everything to play with it. By the end Peanut realizes that it’s best to have fun and play together.
I read a book written and illustrated by Paul Schmid about a week ago. I noticed he tends to use a lot of white space and in Peanut & Fifi..., he demonstrates that he loves leaving whatever in the background as white as possible.
I do wonder why the illustrator seems to use so much white space. By the end of the story we do have two full pages of color, as a surprise effect (the color isn’t very vivid on these two pages).
The two characters are fairly simple looking. The older sister, Fifi, is sharper than Peanut, who is roundish. There are some objects in the background that seemingly float and the color is very well contrasted so that they do not protrude the eye.
To be honest, I’m still trying to figure out what I think of this illustrator...
The story itself is nice. There’s quite a bit of dialogue among the sisters. The younger sister replies in short bursts and the older sister kind of rambles using “and” quite often to make those extra long sentences.
The ending is happy and there isn’t too much to think about. The author adds a slight twist towards the end but the person turning the pages probably won’t be too surprised since there are another several pages left.
