posted on 15 Aug 2018

The Secret of Fruit and Veggies: The First Batch by Symone Marcella

I was the kind of child who enjoyed playing with my food and using my imagination to create stories. I can remember using peas and carrot slices to populate landscapes of mashed potato and Yorkshire pudding mountains with a river of gravy raging through. So I can tune into the idea of talking fruit and vegetables as being the main characters in a children’s story.

This one is certainly packed with a lot of individual characters ranging from tomato siblings Tammy and Tom, Captain Spencer Spinach, Pike and Puddy Pineapple and Caut Cauliflower to the generic tribes of Moaning Melons (this author really likes alliteration). The setting for this strange tale is night time in the produce section of Strangeham’s  Supermarket in the town of Oddfolk where, away from human eyes and ears, everything comes to life These kinds of going on links it with the many traditional stories and more recent examples where inanimate objects come to life and secret hidden worlds where fairy folk and other creatures lead complicated lives.

It seems that all the various fruit and vegetables in the aisles are very excited about being chosen by ‘The People’ the following day and contributing to their overall good health. This is their proud destiny and despite having quite a sophisticated level of self- awareness, they don’t seem to be that worried about being eaten! But Tammy is not entirely happy with her life because she craves adventure and excitement. As the night goes on she certainly gets her wish because various factions have arguments and pitched battles that result in danger and chaos.

There is jeopardy from the outset including fire, flood and the dangers of freezing beyond repair. There is also some concern about the various perils that might await them if they don’t make the required standard to be chosen by The People. This includes possibly being discarded and being tossed into landfill  -  although I wasn’t convinced that this would be a fate worse than the death that they are all going to face anytime soon!

The author has tried hard to include lots of information about the beneficial properties of various fruit and vegetables as the story unfolds. By the final chapter they have all learnt a lot about one another, developed some tolerance for different ways of looking at the world and developed strongly held common goal of living together in harmony in the produce aisle before their lives are forever changed. Even the potentially spoiled bananas seem to be cheered by the prospect of being used to make smoothies and milkshakes amongst other things. By the morning, it seems that they have put the troubles of the night behind them and they all sit proudly in their designated places, ready to be chosen.

This is an unusual story shot through with humour and adventure and the very lively comic book style illustrations by A.J. Cosmo add to the general upbeat tone. I think that imaginative children would engage with the premise of the story and even be tempted to add their own fruit and vegetable personalities. I found that the story was over long and at times very wordy - I am not sure that readers would stay engaged for so many pages.

I did, however, like the end section which gives lots of interesting factual information about each of the characters. Who knew that carrot leaves used to decorate English women’s hats back in the 1600s, or that the cauliflower is a cruciferous vegetable with four petals in the shape of a Greek Cross? Plenty to learn here for anyone who wants to learn more about fruits and vegetables.

 

Karen Argent

August 2018