Generally each full-page painting – some with fully painted backgrounds, others feature the main character and surroundings on a white page — is accompanied with a facing page of text along with some abstract designs, backgrounds or several repeating elements found in the illustration. For example, a painting of Daisy taking out the trash with a bright pink bow atop her head is faced by a page of text with a scattering of large bows across the top and bottom of the page. The rendering of the paintings is for the most part quite professional, but on several pages the shapes and repeating elements on the pages of text suffer from pixilation around the outside edges of the images.
One of Lee’s signatures is the creation of unique, one-of-a-kind fonts for her picture books. The squiggly style employed in No, Never! is appropriately named “Daisy”, and is somewhat reminiscent of the thick, wiggly writing of a new printer. As an adult I read it with ease, but new readers will likely struggle with readability issues. The wavy lines and jagged edges contribute to a sense that the letters are not all sitting on an even line. It’s quite possible that those with any form of reading difficulties will find the text exceedingly difficult to decipher.
A bright, charming book, No, Never! is well positioned to capture the interest of young children when read aloud to them. Daisy is easy for us all to relate to, as much as we might wish to deny it. I can certainly sympathize with the poor dear - more easily than I can my own children when they shout “No!” in fact. She serves as a lesson to me to faithfully put the necessary tasks before my lofty goals and to extend a bit more grace to my little ones - hopefully they’ll also catch that vision themselves.
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