Yet another installment of Snowpocalypse 2011 Toddler Reading Reviews.

I didn't like this one. I checked it out, because it looked potentially awesome, but the tiredness of the characterizations just annoyed me. White male scientist saves the day, check. White male politicians, realistically but unimaginatively depicted, check. Scientist's attractive young female helpmate (this time, a niece), check. Preponderance of images of male faces, check. So a lot of what I would consider sexist illustration in a children's picture book. Hard to say how much of that is the author, Yorinks, and how much is the illustrator, Mort Drucker, of Mad Magazine fame. Drucker's illustrations were really Mad Magazine-ish, and the females were all drawn in his weirdly sexualized not-quite-comic-book style; so they have huge breasts and tiny waists and sexy hips, but often strange grimaces on their faces. It didn't quite look right, to me, in a children's book.

On a positive note, the characters were ethnically diverse. A picture of scientists hard at work, for instance, had two people of color out of five faces -- sadly, though, only one scientist seen out of the seven total was female.

This one will be heading back to the library as soon as the snowstorm ends. ( )

This is a story about a time when tomatoes from Mars invaded earth. As the president, the marines, and all the best scientists on earth try to figure out a solution to the tomato invasion, one scientist is inspired by salad to find a solution to the problem. ( )

The story shows the invasion of Tomatoes from Mars on Earth. The people go frantic and the government doesn’t know how to fight back. Finally a scientist suggests making peace with the tomatoes but his plan fails. Then he comes up with using salad dressing to rid the earth of their invaders. This works and the Tomatoes leave. ( )

Dr. Shtickle proposed at a science conference that Mars was red because of giant tomatoes and everyone didn't believe him and laughed in his face. Until one day when the tomatoes landed in Minnesota and began to dye the whole planet red. The president of the United States turned to Dr. Shtickle for answers but he couldn't figure out how to communicate with these Martian tomatoes. Under threat that the military might destroy the tomatoes and turn the whole planet red, Dr. Shtickle had to think quickly. A tomato bursted through his apartment window and he decided throw salad condiments on it, which made it retreat. Dr. Shitckle was awarded the Red Badge of Courage for his heroic acts. ( )

A scientist works with the U.S. government to figure out how to stop an invasion of alien fruits from destroying Earth. ( )