Cheryl's review says it wonderfully! The only thing I would add to this is that my niece definitely enjoyed Pop!, and she was very excited about and engrossed in the story. She was also quite taken with the illustrations, which are simple, but boy, do they do an excellent job of establishing time and setting! At the end of the story when Walter says that he was just satisfied that he made children happy, my niece exclaimed, "He did! I LOVE BUBBLE GUM!!" I thought that was kind of interesting, since she doesn't know how to blow bubbles yet, but hey, once she learns she'll just love it even more!My niece was very eager to look at the information at the back of the book, but she was disappointed that there wasn't a photo of Walter Diemer. She likes some real photographs included in her non-fiction books, and I have to admit, this would have been a welcome addition. I was curious to see Walter's face, too.
My nephew just got to try his first piece of gum a couple weeks ago, so he wasn't quite as enthused about this book as my niece was. He did enjoy the illustrations, though, and he did offer the observation that the characters' eyes in this story looked like "boobly eyes," (I think (hope) he meant googly eyes), and he's right, they kind of do. :-)