A Chocolate Moose for Dinner

I took a call from a patron today who was looking for a kid's book and couldn't remember the name or the title. All she could tell me was that she thought it was written by the star of My Three Sons and that it had to do with literal interpretations of sayings.

I read this book and [b:The King Who Rained|616032|The King Who Rained|Fred Gwynne|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1297893384s/616032.jpg|990347] a million times when I was little. I LOVED them both, but this one was my favorite. Mom still tells a story about the first time I saw a real (though dead & stuffed) moose in a museum and how I then made sure to point out that it wasn't a chocolate moose. Yes.

Anyhoodle, I was lucky 'cause I thought of this book immediately, and it show more turns out it was written by that Munsters guy. I totally didn't know that. And the patron was pleased because this was, in fact, the book she wanted. So I pulled it from the shelf and read it again before I set it aside for her. It's still really awesome. Oh, life. show less

It’s not quite as good as The King Who Rained, the illustrations are still very nice and it’s a helpful visual guide to help clear the confusion of homonyms. There is a scull/skull and the skull is a bit ominous so if you or your child are uncomfortable with that, skip this one.

This is a wonderful classic picture book that is told from the perspective of an innocent child who is confused by the phrases and sayings of her parents. She takes all the idioms and figures of speech her parents use as being literal. Some of the sayings are such as: "a man held up a bank" with an illustration of a man holding a bank building in the air. The illustrations definitely are a crucial part of this book, it truly would have a completely different message without the illustrations.

This is an enjoyable and funny book for children and adults alike. The comedy comes in the pairing of the text and the illustrations. The author uses idioms, colloquialism, and homophones to make interpretive sentences. The illustrations show the literal (and often comical) interpretation of the sentences from the child's perspective. For example, the child narrator says that "Daddy says he can play piano by ear", meaning that he doesn't need to read music in order to play. However, the illustration shows the child's meaning by showing her daddy playing the piano with his hear. This book is great for the classroom when teaching figurative language. The only drawback is that many of the references are older and lesser known to children. show more For example, the author mentions the arms race, gorilla warfare, and references Salvidor Dahli. However, these can be used to teach about the time period of the book. show less

This book that would be great for a discussion regarding idioms. The little girl in the book takes the phrases her parents say and interprets them literally. The illustrations in the book show her literal meaning of what her parents say which makes it very humorous. Children would love this during a read aloud.

I loved these punny books when I was a kid (both A Chocolate Moose for Dinner and The King Who Rained) but I haven't seen them in decades. It would be fun to find a copy to revisit them now, as an adult.

This book is a good example of a fantasy because the book plays with homophones and how somethings can be interpreted differently, an example of this is "Santa Claws" showing a picture of Santa with claws instead of "Santa Claus". Most of the pictures in the book, or the understanding of the girl, is fantasy, such as Santa having long claws. The artwork looks like it was done in marker or ink. The plot is mainly about the daughter misunderstanding what her parents are saying to her, and the author makes humor out of all of the words that are either homophones or have more than one meaning.