Dinosaurs, Humor, K-12, banana, fruit, asking questions, Why?, connection, reasons, reaction 

Ages 4 To 8 So Why Did The Banana Split? Well, For The Same Reason The Jackhammers Hit The Road, The Lettuce Headed Out, and The Jump Ropes Skipped Town. It Was Even Enough To Make The Baseball Players Strike Out. Here's A Hint: It's Bigger Than A Bread Box. and Named Rex. With Jimmy Holder's Sly Illustrations Bringing Every Pun To Life, Rick Walton's Verbal Deftness Will Leave Readers Splitting Too--Their Sides. From Publishers Weekly
The creators of Pig, Pigger, Piggest here dish out a kid-tickling serving of humor, illustrating a sequence of punning variations on verb phrases that can all be translated, roughly, to mean "exit." This is exactly what the characters (some human, most not) do when a gigantic dinosaur appears, baring his enormous, sharp teeth. Jump ropes "skipped town," astronauts "took off," frogs "hopped a train" that then "made tracks" and (in a triple whammy) "the bananas split, peeled out, slipped away." Walton stretches his concept with some of the entries (e.g., baseball players "struck out on their own" and trees "took their leaves") and indulges in several groaners (shoppers say "Good buy," and shopkeepers add, "Buy buy"). Depicting amusingly frantic faces on a variety of inanimate objects, Holder's stylized, fittingly exaggerated cartoons will wring chuckles from the audience. Although their worldlier parents may want to take a hike from the one-joke wordplay, kids riveted by puns will guffaw. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Gr 1-4-An erratic pun sampler from a veteran riddler. When dinosaur Rex visits (suitcase with travel stickers daintily in claw), everyone and every thing clears out of town: people, cattle, trains, lettuce, and jackhammers. Of course, they all leave with a play on words-the banana split, the baseball players strike out, and the frogs hop a train. Definitely a read-aloud, this book is a visual riot but some of the verbal puns are sure to elude a younger audience ("trees took their leaves" or "knives cut and ran"). Holder meets the challenge of personifying inanimate objects like trees, boots, and water with mixed success. Actually, the cows with their upturned snouts (they "mooved on") look even weirder than the jump ropes with eyeballs and eyelashes at the ends of the handles (they "skipped town"). Still, children will get a kick out of the panic-stricken exodus caused by the big-mouthed, but ultimately benign monster. A super-silly, plotless punfest that could also serve as a good linguistic example for kids trying to create their own wordplays.-John Sigwald, Unger Memorial Library, Plainview, TX

Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information, Inc. 

Rick Walton first thought of writing for children when his high school English teacher, Joyce Nelson, told him that a story he had written for the class would make a good children's book. But it wasn't until after he had dabbled in business, law, teaching, software design, and almost every other career in the book, he finally realized that writing for kids was one of the few things that he both enjoyed and was good at. Since then Rick has had over ninety books published. His works include picture books, riddle books, activity books, mini-mysteries, a collection of poetry, and educational and game software. His books have been featured on the IRA Children's Choice list, Reading Rainbow, and on CBS This Morning. Rick teaches university courses on picture book writing and on the children's book publishing industry.

You can find out more about Rick at www.rickwalton.com, and at www.rickcreation.com.