If You Make a Call on a Banana Phone by Emily Hughes, Gideon Sterer
Published by Clarion Books ISBN: 0063375222
Genres: Animals, Humor
Format: Picture Book Fiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads

Great front book cover of a gorilla talking/listening on a banana phone against a solid red background and on the back cover a child doing the same on a solid green background. When you look inside, you learn the gorilla is conversing with the dark-haired child who called him. The gorilla has a lot of questions, like “Why are you calling?” and asks what you look like?  Family members doubt that the child is really speaking to a gorilla, but when the gorilla and friends show up for a visit, they are surprised. However the child knows, if you make a call on a banana phone, “You might just make a friend.”

Hughes’ artwork is  a beautiful mix of fantasy and normality. Sterer provides good modeling about how a lonely child can make a new friend. Almost the entire text is made up of suppositions, much like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, but it works to tell a simple story, especially because the illustrations enhance the text. A sweet and humorous book for 3-6 year olds, and a fun readaloud for story time. I do wonder though in this age of cell phones, how many kids will relate to the banana handset?

Barb Rehmeyer, Liberty Library