In How Are You Peeling?, Freymann and Elffers sought out wrinkly, bulging fruits and vegetables and applied beans to form eyeballs. The resulting veggie faces showed wit and a keen design sensibility. In Gus and Button
and this volume, the artists no longer wait for the poetic moment. They slice and pierce vegetable chunks to create animal likenesses—with less successful results. The title refers to the book's canine theme and artistic media. Each page features a common saying like "in the doghouse" and a visual play on words. For "dog paddle," which here has nothing to do with swimming, a green hound built from two pears backhands a ping-pong ball with a racquet made from a radish slice. "Pup tent" pictures a lettuce-leaf shelter and a red radish-puppy. Jalapeno peppers, with their tail-like stems and their variable coloration, come in handy for "sick puppy" (a queasy red and green) and "lucky dog" (who holds a cauliflower bone in his jaws). Even though the mushroom chunks and mangled potato parts are forced into service, whimsy prevails in the portraits of the frisee lettuce sheepdog, the broccoli poodle and the banana, cut lengthwise and laid flat to resemble two long yellow dogs with blunt black noses ("Let sleeping dogs lie"). All ages. (Sept.)
