Illustration by Miguel Ordóñez
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Release Date: June 9, 2015
Your baby's first word will be Dada, right?
Written for the male set of adult readers, this is supposed to be a book about how fathers try to coerce their children into using the word Dada before anything else. Now, I have mixed emotions concerning celebrity authors as it seems to be hit or miss on the quality scale. As far as late night talk show hosts are concerned, it has been a solid miss. I actually enjoy Jimmy Fallon, I think he is a talented musician and comedian, but he is not a children's book writer. In fact, it is getting a bit exhausting how all these celebrities think they can write a children's book, usually with a terrible concept, and someone out there will publish it. And people will buy it too.
A child's first word is always a source of debate and fascination. My first word words were mama, daddy, and chocolate. In this book, it is a menagerie of animals waiting and coaxing their young to say the word Dada. Instead, the animals all say their own various sounds. It is an incredibly simple concept, one so simple that I am a bit disappointed in Jimmy for not being better. Surely he tells better bedtime stories to his daughters than this. Which brings me to my final point, who is this book written for? Is it for children, because if so the payoff is very small and there isn't enough here either textually or visually to entertain a toddler. If it is for adults then the same thing rings true. Except the parents are the ones who will shell out their money for this laughable children's book, so I guess it will be Jimmy laughing all the way to the bank.
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