Adam Rex’s book, Nothing Rhymes with Orange, sets out the problem right there in the title. Nothing rhymes with orange! Can you imagine a more frustrating issue when you’re writing a poem dedicated to fruit?
The book is basically a poem in picture book format, narrated by an apple. The forlorn orange watches from the sidelines as the apple includes everything from yams (which aren’t even a fruit) to Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche in his poem, but not the orange. Finally at the end of the book, the apple comes up with a way to include the orange in his poem by using a fake word.
Unfortunately, though the plot is somewhat cute, the layout was incredibly busy on several pages. It was visually overstimulating and made the book less enjoyable to read. Overall, Nothing Rhymes with Orange is funny and a great way to teach your children about different kinds of fruit, but its layout was awful. Due to this issue, I wouldn’t recommend this book to most people. --Olivia, a PCPL Virtual Volunteer
