Just a Banana

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Author(s)

Barry Salzberg

Publisher

Workman Publishing

Genre(s)

Age Range

Release Date

April 15, 2025

ISBN

978-1523528837

Buy This Book

The banana—age-old comedy gold! For silly kids who love to laugh and stretch their imaginations in creative ways, it’s the newest offering from the bestselling author of Beautiful Oops! Includes 10 lift-the-flaps.

It’s just a banana…or is it? There’s nothing to see here—until you lift the flap to find that what at first looks like just a banana is actually a curious lizard, or a boat out at sea, or the horn of a unicorn, or…?

The narrator is on a mission to convince the reader that what they’re looking at really is just a banana…or is it? Every page of this book features what appears to be a plain old banana—until the reader lifts the flap to reveal a delightful illustration on every page that transforms the oblong yellow fruit into something new and unexpected. With a few well-placed squiggles, dots, and lines, Saltzberg cleverly reveals a banana turned into a silly smile, a clever mouse, a crescent moon in the night sky, and more! This book allows the reader’s imagination to run wild, encouraging kids to look at objects in a whole new way, while the text hilariously insists—it’s really (pinky promise!) just a banana!

Editor review

1 review

A different perspective on bananas

January 02, 2026 (Updated: June 28, 2026)

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

This slightly larger board book (7" x 7") has an additional draw-- fold out flaps! Starting with the premise that "This is a banana", with a photo of the fruit on a plain background, the fold out flaps show simple line drawings that turn the object into something else entirely. The banana is also a smile, a canoe, a mouse, a fish, and many other things. The text changes a bit, asking more questions about whether or not this is REALLY a banana, and we even see peeled bananas turning into a unicorn and Squid. At the end, a monkey ponders a peeled banana before eating it, because it IS "just a banana". But is the empty peel just a peel?

Good Points

Young readers will love the silly surprises on each page, and I can definitely see them taking this idea and running with it themselves. I can't explain why it is so enthralling to have pages open up, down, and sideways, but that seems to be part of the "appeal" as well. This might take a little maneuvering to read with a little one on one's lap, since the fold outs make the book a bit large, although I haven't tried this with an actual child. Be prepared to have bananas on hand to model for the drawings.

This reminded me quite a bit of I Want to Read All the Books author Debbie Ridpath Ohi's social media drawings, where she will take broken crayons or found objects and have pictures emerge from them. This is a fun, interactive book to read to fans of Hill and Wiseman's When Your Lion Needs a Bath, Cutler's The Crayon Stub, or Jory and Oswald's The Big Cheese. It would also be a good companion to drawing books like the classic Ed Emberley's Complete Funprint Drawing Book. Just don't use your banana as a crayon!