Every so often we stumble upon a book that S keeps requesting even though the book is too long or complicated for a two-and-a-half year old attention span.

When this happens, there are generally a few things at play: (1) a subject or combination of subjects S loves, (2) truly expressive and inviting illustrations, and (3) an extremely fast introduction to an emotionally-resonant main character.

Phuc Tran and Pete Oswald‘s Cranky hits all three criteria for such a book. It’s too long for S and the puns go straight over S’s head. But S keeps asking to read it because it features (1) construction vehicles, (2) wonderful illustrations, and (3) a main character that S can root for from page one. Also ice cream, which we’ll come back to.

On a typical read, we make it through about the first seven pages of the book. The first five pages are tight, snappy and have about 10 words per page. They also quickly introduce our main character, Cranky, and his problem — he’s cranky, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. (It’s like Grumpy Monkey with construction vehicles…) Oswald’s illustrations imbue Cranky with a life and personality that makes him feel friendly and compelling to S, frown and self-proclaimed crankiness aside.

The next two pages have nearly 40 words per page, and significantly longer sentences. After that, we sometimes keep going, with me paraphrasing the text, but by page 11, the same thing happens every time: S declares that it is time to look for the ice cream, and flips all the way to the last two pages of the book.

These last two pages are notable to S not for Cranky’s epiphany about friendship (we skip almost the entire plot of this book), but solely for the giant ice cream cones. They really are quite impressive – brightly colored, two scoops, lots of sprinkles, a cherry… S loves to look at the ice cream. The splat is irrelevant, just the fact of the ice cream is what matters.

The sheer amount of work that these ice cream cones are doing for S’s interest in the book gave me even more appreciation for the work illustrators do. Nothing in the text suggests the need for the presence of ice cream, yet the ice cream (and the splat!) are a perfect visual ending for the book. It also highlights yet again the value of having multiple toddler hooks in a given book, regardless of length.

And now I’m off to daydream about ice cream.

Cranky By the Numbers

Pages: 30 pages of what I would consider the “main” book

Word Count: 725

Words Per Illustration: 21.32

Words Per Sentence: 8.06