Candy 1 to 20: A Book Review

A book about about counting made out of candy. Read. Crave for other candies.

Reviewed by Matty

October 17, 2011

Visit DylansCandyBar.com

“A book review”?

Yeah.

“Why?”

Well, the publisher of said book, Chronicle Books, is a great local SF company that I like a lot. And sure, there are still people that read books without images or digital ink. (Mind you…none of those people are me. I’m all Kindle. But I do buy gifts for people, and those quaint, solid books are often the right price.)

And just so we’re clear, I’m not usually a candy book kind of guy. I’m more of A Game of Thrones kind of guy and this, aint that…It’s pictures of candy in the shapes of #s. I’m guessing for ages 0-2. And that’s fine; I’m all for pushing sugar on kids who can barely take in solids. In such a cruel, harsh world, the consumption of sweets may be their only true friend.

When Chronicle Books sent an email asking if the Candy Gurus would like to review, I quickly said yes without looking at the link to the book. I assumed it was an actual book with words, probably a bit humorous, since their promotions folks must have done their due diligence and knew our site wasn’t a run-o-the-mill candy review site, but rather a more…acerbic…look at candies. Right?

So then I received Candy 1 to 20 by Laurie Wolf and Pam Abrams, photos by Bruce Wolf.

And true to what we do, I’m going to have to review this book as only this site would.

First question: How come there are 2 authors when there are no words? I’m no genius, granted, but how is there writing credit for: “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20” ?

2nd question: Shouldn’t a book of pictures have incredibly-shot, clear photos that (in this case) make you want to eat? Not sure my hi-quality jpegs are doing it justice here either, but this was my biggest peeve with the book. I wanted mouth watering photos and instead they appeared a tad grainy.

Third question: Why these candies? As I was perusing through, I wanted to see unique things. The bright colors were good, especially suited to the little kiddies. But the #8, for example, is made with Double Bubble bubblegum, which is terrible bottom-of-the-3-month-old-Halloween-candy-bag bubblegum. Why not use awesome taffy? Or if gum was a must, take some of those mini chicklets, that have crazy bright colors, and lay 100’s of those in a figure 8 pile.

At the end of the day, the book is fine. Little kids will love looking at it I’m sure; priming themselves for what will be a tumultuous relationship with sugar for the rest of their lives. And parents, who aren’t sugar nazis, will be happy to teach basic counting with pictures that may make them want to eat. But I say, why not go off and do something really unique with a book like this? Take uber-great photos that look so realistic, you feel like you could touch the candy. Use candies that aren’t necessarily US icons but instead are simply really good, and list them all at the end of the book so even us parents could learn a little something.

Zolli Candy

3 Comments

  1. matty

    woops.

    lys

    Reply
  2. aimee

    litlol. although don’t think this review bodes too well for me getting my book published by chronicle. thanks honey.

    Reply
  3. Jonny

    I agree with matty. Whereas I love the concept of this book, I just think it could have been done a lot better. Or rather, …I could have done this in 2 hours with my wife’s SLR camera. Anything I can do in 2 hours can’t be very good, unless it’s making my gazpacho, which kicks major ass.

    Reply

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