From School Library Journal
K-Gr 3—The usual breakfast routine takes a wonderfully odd turn one day. Two unnamed sisters sit around the table one morning and recall the worst breakfast they've ever had. What starts out with tales of burning toast turns into accounts of "steaming slick tomatoes oozing into RANCID swill." The descriptions of this bizarre meal become increasingly more grotesque, causing the sisters to dread their upcoming breakfast. Then, out of the giant cracked eggs emerge dinosaurlike creatures that create havoc in the kitchen. The honey attracts large, menacing bees. The sausages multiply and become food for the octopuses, squid, and other creatures feasting on the gnarly meal. The over-the-top descriptions reflect young kids' tendency to exaggerate. Eventually, the sisters realize that their meal is not that bad and are grateful for the food in front of them. Miéville, known for his genre-defying fantasy novels for adults, makes a splash with his picture book debut. Smith's illustrations, filled with geometric shapes and patterns, are the perfect complement to the text, although younger readers may have a hard time making out what's happening in the frenetic mixed-media images. VERDICT Perhaps not a first purchase, this is a subversive delight for those younger readers prone to embellishment.—Christopher Lassen, BookOps: The New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library
Review
"Miéville and Smith’s dialogue is fantastic: witty, smart, with great rhythm that doesn’t sacrifice artful turns of phrase to reach for an internal rhyme . . . Smith’s artwork keeps pace with the text, which the artist sets into little rectangles to contrast with the jaggedly flamboyant paintings that get increasingly manic as the girl goes on, incorporating tentacles and pterodactyls as well as piled-high foodstuffs . . . This should be in the hands of all kids who aren’t easily satiated by tamer picture books and who would engage with a real work of art that they can revisit over and over. None of the artwork is too gross to behold, even for the squeamish, but it does perfectly illustrate the culinary horrors the girl is trying to convey to her sister. A brilliant, original, infinitely rereadable book that can sit alongside Sendak and Dahl."
― Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
"Miéville lets it rip in this stomping, howling rant about a bad meal of legendary proportions . . . Punk artist Smith’s neatly framed dialogue boxes and crisp black contours have a buttoned-up look, but no: tentacles wave from inside bowls, monsters smile amid mountains of vile sausages, and a blue alien juggles cherry tomatoes. As the pages turn, the towers of bad food grow ever loftier. In the end, a simple tea strainer saves the sisters from another terrible meal. This one’s for families enamored of new words, exotic foods, and strong opinions."
― Publishers Weekly
"This is a child’s imagination come to life, where a good thing can be the greatest thing in existence and a minor inconvenience snowballs into the most horrendous, atrocious, appalling, not good, very bad meal you’ve ever had."
― San Francisco Book Review
"Deftly written by the exceptionally talented China Miéville and shockingly but gifted illustrated by Zak Smith, The Worst Breakfast is a unique picture book that will be enduringly popular . . . Very highly recommended."
― Midwest Book Review
"Miéville, known for his genre-defying fantasy novels for adults, makes a splash with his picture book debut. Smith’s illustrations, filled with geometric shapes and patterns, are the perfect complement to the text . . . This is a subversive delight."
― School Library Journal
About the Author
China Miéville is the author of numerous books, including The City & The City, Embassytown, Railsea, and Perdido Street Station. His works have won the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award (three times). He lives and works in London.
Zak Smith is an artist who first came to prominence with his mammoth work Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow. Smith's paintings and drawings are held in major public and private collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He lives and works in Los Angeles and tries to answer all of his mail.
