Famed spoken-word poet Laura Dockrill’s hilarious read-aloud about an outraged baked good!

Oooohhh . . . not you again!
AGGGHH It’s so bright! . . . Close this book this very second, you nosy noodle!

Cookie has woken up on the wrong side of the bed and is very angry. You want to know why? Well, you’d have to keep reading to find out, but now Cookie’s calling you annoying and telling you to mind your own business. If by chance you do stick around, you might hear about a certain roommate’s terrible musical skills, why you should never let your barber try out a “new look,” how it’s impossible to find a hat that fits a cookie, and why an ice-cream parlor that’s out of your favorite treat can be a source of desolation. Then there’s the matter of a hungry bird who tries to snack on you. . . . Propelled by quirky humor and woes that every young child can relate to, Angry Cookie suggests that sometimes the best way to cheer up a grumpy lump is simply by being there — and lending your ears.

approx. 40 pages

Out March 12, 2019

MY THOUGHTS:

I received this book in exchange for my honest review.

Okay, am I the only one that gets creeped out by cooked food being alive? Maybe it’s the supernatural thriller author in me, but eating something that’s alive like a cookie…

So in this book there’s an angry cookie. It wears cute little clothes and has real human issues. It’s suppose to be a cookie, but to me it looks more like a chick, just missing a beak, which conjures another horrific visual. This one has orange hair. Do cookies have hair? Ew! I don’t know about you, but my mom taught me that finding hair in food was gross, and bad. It has to go for a hair cut… It’s hair grows… I’ve got nothing…

Reminds me of a movie I saw. It was Young Sherlock Holmes. All the pastries came alive and jammed into young Watson’s face, mouth and well ew. They didn’t have hair though. And, oddly enough while diving to their deaths, they were rather jovial about it. They too had long skinny arms and legs and popping eyeballs…

Let’s talk about the main character, this… cookie. It looks like a chick with no beak, has red hair, is walking and talking and fuming and a bird tries to eat it, so I’m assuming it’s an edible cookie. One that talks, thinks and feels… and wears clothes.

I think there’s a pickle with arms, making it look more like a cactus–it has body hair, er, spikes? It also sports red hair. I think it’s wearing a dress. What’s with the hairy spikes sticking out of the ‘dress?’ Again, food with hair…

For me, this cookie is an issue. It wears pants and has a butt crack. Why does it wear pants? Are they icing pants? Nope, they’re pants pants. So now I have this visual. If this cookie has a butt crack, it must poop? Ew. It’s… a… cookie. For me now there’s a new meaning to ‘crumbs’ as my daughter calls it (she’s special needs). At this point, give the cookie a beak and call it a chicken, then maybe the butt crack would make more sense and I wouldn’t care because I wouldn’t want to eat it since it’s a pooping friendly chick. Gawd!

Next I discover that the cookie can brush its teeth.  That’s good, right? Wait… a cookie with teeth? So if I bit it, would it bite me back? Okay, I’m starting not to like this cookie. At least its teeth are white… but they won’t go with a beak… will they? Another visual…

The fact that a cookie has hair that is hanging in its eyes… (let that simmer for a bit) and is in need of a haircut… by fruit–a banana to be precise, is mind-blowing. Sure it’s meant to be cute, but earlier the cookie insisted that wearing a hat over a new haircut meant the cut went south, yet, and I say this slowly to show effect…

…the… banana… barber… is…wearing…a…hat.

Would you go to this barber? I should add, this banana barber also has hair, ew. And it too is wearing pants and looks like it did a boom boom in them, or has one bad-ass case of hemorrhoids. It’s wielding scissors that look like gardening shears… Nope, I wouldn’t go near this thing.

So in this bizarre land of living cooked food with eyes, noses, mouths and various body parts including butt cracks and possibly roids, there’s the odd vegetable that’s been given life, many candies wearing various footwear and cakes that drive cars. Did I mention I saw a zucchini go by on a scooter?

Next, our living cookie beakless chick is dreaming of eating a vanilla sundae. Hmmm. That’s hmmmm, not mmmmmm.

It goes on to describe this sundae as having whipped cream, marshmellows and “hundreds and thousands and millions of chocolate sprinkles and even a red cherry on top…” I want to mention the page that shows a jube jube eating a yellow sundae with what looks like a face on it, and then run screaming from the room. I think the wierdest thing I saw in this book was candy eating ice cream sundaes with candy sprinkles on them. So what are the sprinkles? Candy babies… ewwwwww. Really?

I thought the realm of living cooked food extended mostly to vegetables, candies and various pastries, but then I saw a cheese sandwich with arms and legs and eyes running away from a bird trying to eat it too… No offense, but I’d be more concerned with the candies eating sprinkles than the bird eating a sandwich except, this layered deli product also had teeth. So in some poor kid’s worse nightmare, couldn’t this jaw snapping deli delight just spring up and eat the bird? At this stage of horrific realism, why not add a bird decapitation?  Chomp! Bite its head right off, only I think the bird is the only thing that makes sense in this culinary nightmare. It looks like a bird, has wings like a bird and even has a beak. Thank goodness! Because if it didn’t have a beak and was representing the fowl of this realm, I’d have to say it looked more like a bowling pin with orange feet and the cookie MC actually had a chance at being a beakless chick! And while we’re at it, where’s its pants? Why is it the only real creature in this book, without clothed body parts? Nudity?

I’m beginning to understand why the beakless looking chick of a cookie is getting so angry surrounded by the bizarre and creepy creatures of this realm that started with a music playing orange-haired, hairy pickle, included cannibalistic candies, teeth bearing deli and other culinary foods with arms and legs and fashion… and then there’s floating face painted clouds that appear to be very happy despite everything going on around them.  Everywhere you look, there’s reminders of food we eat that bear faces and body parts. If that’s not bad enough, let’s give them emotions and issues and have them eaten by their own kind, cuz you know, it’s fun!

I know this is fantasy, but even the flowers end up with faces and with their smiles I can only assume that they are happy expressing emotions, which in itself wouldn’t be a bad thing. Who knew, flowers may very well have feelings. However, when I look at the next page, I can’t help but wonder how the flowers feel as the beakless cookie chick, supposedly also happy at this point in the story, unemotionally picks its brethern, the four-leaf clover, obviously ending its life without thought as happy surrounding clouds watch. In fact, the once very angry cookie beakless chick (I’d be angry about now too), ends up gleefully happy and expresses this by throwing decapitated flower heads and clovers all over, and some of these flora seem to like the idea because they’re smiling too.

You ever watch one of those horror shows with the smiling beautiful girl jamming six inch knitting needles into the tied up victim’s eyes? Ya, me neither. But this is how this book makes me feel. Imagine a child… now, imagine a child with a very active imagination…

The story. Oh the story deserved so much more! It is full of good intentions. It shows children that it’s okay to be angry, but be happy too for all those things worthy. It also shows that everyone has things that bother them, but look at the brighter side of things and you’ll see they’re not that bad. Friendship is shown as friends who stick around even if someone is angry and having a bad hair day… Take the story out of the illustrations, and bam! You have a good picture book story.

So let’s wrap this up:

1. Food and hair
2. Candy canibalism
3. Hurting and harming and being happy about it…
4. food with teeth
5. food with attitude, think a spicy meatball without teeth might have worked better.
6. hairy pickles and hemorrhoidal bananas with cutting shears… not so funny

I can clearly see that the ‘humor’ of this book is lost on me.  I have NO IDEA what the illustrator was thinking? I personally, as the book stands, would not share this with an adult let alone a child. Both are very talented individuals, and the story deserves five stars.  The artwork… not so much. Is there potential? The story deserves five stars. The concept of the artwork, not five stars definitely. The talent of the artist is there, but wow… I would have done this VERY differently and I am not one to say this ever about anyone’s creations. I love different, adore it, thrive off it, but…

Frankly, the illustrations could be what nightmares are made of, look at big film productions and what they’ve done with food that comes alive… boo ha ha ha… those deviled eggs are the worst.

I gave this book: