Based on title alone, I thought that Tony Payne's picture book Hipponotumus would be funnier than it was. Ah, but picture books are not written for 40-something moms so much as for 4-year-olds. And mine loved it.
So I'll admit I'm not a picture book expert, and frankly, I'm not reading many books from the grown-up shelves lately either. Maybe I'm going soft, maybe I'm just making bad picks.
The last book I didn't finish was What the Nose Knows, about the science of smell. Yes, I know it sounds geeky, but I like to think I'm as geeky as the next guy/girl; the subject fascinates me and the book was very well researched. It just didn't tell a story.
Folks, non-fiction does NOT have to be dry. I actually enjoyed a rather long historical nonfiction work about the history of the color red. It sounds drier than burnt toast, but the author told a great story throughout the book. Alas, the nose didn't know enough about creative nonfiction to pull off a similar feat.
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