Sandra Keith Boynton (born April 3, 1953) is the author of many children's pictures books and children's albums. She also used to be a greeting card writer.
Tropes featured in her works:
- Banging Pots and Pans: The focus of the song "Pots and Pans".
- Call-Back: The boring party in "Wave Bye-Bye" starts off with "Boring Song" in the background.
- Casanova Wannabe: The Turkey from "Turkey Love Song". He tries to woo a chicken and a duck, both of whom show no interest.
- Crossing the Desert: Chocolate: The Consuming Passion parodies this with a title page headed "Crossing the Dessert". The page image is a hippo crawling across a gigantic bowl of vanilla ice-cream and feebly crying for chocolate.
- Deteriorates Into Gibberish: In the song "Nobody Understands Me", the singer throws in nonsense words throughout. Near the end, she deteriorates into this for one whole sentence.Nobody beezifies me
Nobody febbin ud.
Kibbldzy deen voo nizee!
I hate being misunderstood. - Everything Is an Instrument: "Pots and Pans", about making music with random kitchen utensils.Blender solo!
- Extreme Omnivore: The "pet" from "Please, Can I Keep It?" eats bread, fruit, juice, flowers and the flower vase.
- Food Songs Are Funny: "Faraway Cookies" (a love song to the cookie jar) and "O Lonely Peas" (a kid talking to the peas he refuses to eat).
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Chocolate: The Consuming Passion divides chocolate lovers into four categories, mirroring this trope: The Pastoral Chocolatist ("Pensive, pleasant, somewhat shy" — phlegmatic), the Genteel Theobromian ("Affable leader, secretly cynical" — choleric), the Refined Palate ("Artistic, intellectual, reclusive" — melancholic) and the Sensuous Chocophile ("Moody, impulsive, self-indulgent" — sanguine).
- Friendly Tickle Torture: "Tickle Time"
- From Stray to Pet: The child's request in "Please, Can I Keep It?" - to take in the stray...thing...that followed her home.
- Funny Background Event: During "The Uninvited Parade Strikes Again", the grocery store employee on the intercom calls out for "Security" twice, before requesting, "Anyone?"
- Here We Go Again!: "But Not the Hippopotamus". After the animals finally convince the hippopotamus to join them, the book says, "but not the armadillo."
- "I Am Great!" Song: "Cows" is a song about how the titular cows are such great performers.
- I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: "(Don't Give Me That) Broccoli"; after an entire song singing about the horrors of broccoli, the final line is: "Yum."
- Intermission: For the Intermission Song in Philadelphia Chickens
- I Was Told There Would Be Cake: "Wave Bye-Bye" on Dog Train. "How can it be a party when they don't have cake?"
- The Joy of X: The Compleat Turkey.
- Kids Hate Vegetables: "(Don't Give Me That) Broccoli", an entire song about the horrors of broccoli. "O Lonely Peas", likewise, is a song about a child refusing to eat the peas on their plate.
- Least Rhymable Word: in But Not The Hippopotamus
- Odd Name Out: In "15 Pets", fourteen are named Bob.
- Overly Long Gag: In "The Uninvited Parade Strikes Again", the marching band invades the grocery store as they march up and down the rows that bear the names of EVERY SINGLE ONE of the 26 letters of the alphabet. The same band reappears at several points in the album.
- Overly Long Name: In "15 Pets", the turtle is called "Simon James Alexander Ragsdale the Third." The other 14 are named Bob.
- Parental Love Song: Going by the illustrations, "Snuggle Puppy", an affectionate song, is from a dog to a puppy.Oh, snuggle puppy of mine
Everything about you is especially fine
I love what you are; I love what you do
Fuzzy little snuggle puppy, I love you! - Perspective Flip:
- "But Not The Armadillo" is this to "But Not The Hippopotamus", telling the story of the armadillo who appears on the last page of "But Not The Hippopotamus".
- "Hippos Go Berserk" had a follow-up with "Hippos Remain Calm", which focuses on the two hippos who were the first to be invited to the party in the original book. Before that fateful phone call, the pair went about their day trying to stay relaxed even in the face of the unexpected. Even after they got to their wistful friend's house, it was a small get together before 42 other hippos (and one beast) came and really got the ball rolling. As the last ones to leave, they went home and promptly slept through the next day.
- Pig Latin: In Grunt, while everybody else sings in real Latin, guess what the pigs sing in?
- Planet of Steves: the song "Fifteen Animals" is narrated by a young boy who owns said fifteen animals and is "giving each one a special name" — Bob. And then at the end, we meet the fifteenth animal, his turtle Simon James Alexander Ragsdale III.
- Removable Shell: A board book by Sandra Boynton featured a turtle inside its shell looking at another turtle that's outside its shell.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Discussed and averted in "Dinosaur Blues." The singer is sad because people assume that he's a bad guy, being a Tyrannosaurus rex, but he's "really a sensitive guy."
- Silly Love Songs:
- "Faraway Cookies", performed as though yearning for a person, is actually about the narrator wanting the cookies.Oh chocolate chip cookies so high on the shelf
Hiding inside of a jar
I'm not tall enough to reach you myself
So near and yet so very far. - "I Love You More Than Cheese", sung by one mouse to another, comparing his love for her to his love for various cheeses.
- "Turkey Love Song", a generic song which the turkey sings to two different birds alone within the time we hear.
- "Faraway Cookies", performed as though yearning for a person, is actually about the narrator wanting the cookies.
- Single Stanza Song:
- "The Shortest Song in the Universe", at two levels - the song about the song is only one stanza and a fade-out, and the shortest song itself is just one syllable.The shortest song in the universe
Really isn't much fun
It only has one puny verse:(HO!)... and now it's done! - Also "Dinosaur Round", which repeats four lines over and over.How can I feed this dinosaur
Who eats my lunch and asks for more?
More, more, more, more!
Never own a dinosaur.
- "The Shortest Song in the Universe", at two levels - the song about the song is only one stanza and a fade-out, and the shortest song itself is just one syllable.
- "Somewhere" Song: "Pig Island" describes an idyllic island inhabited entirely by pigs.
- Space Madness: In the three-part song "Cow Planet", sung by Billy J. Kramer, episode 2 heavily implies this is starting to happen to the crew by then. The voices sound deadpan and irritable, and some of the lyrics even suggest that some are getting sick of each other. "We've got a blazing afterburner, it's an irritating drum..."
- Stock "Yuck!": "O Lonely Peas", about a kid talking to the peas he refuses to eat, and "Don't Give Me That (Broccoli)", about a kid resisting eating his broccoli.
- Suddenly Speaking: At the end of the song, "Please Can I Keep It?", the heretofore-silent stray adds its own "Oh, please?" to the child's request.
- Trapped at the Dinner Table: "O Lonely Peas" is a silly food song sung by a hippo child to the peas on his plate, which he hates but his parents insist he eat.
- Visual Pun: Occasionally appeared in her greeting cards. A notable example; one Christmas card featured a line of animals; a small fish in a bowl, a baby sheep, a horse, two egrets, a moose, a panda bear, a hippopotamus, a gnu and a reindeer.. "Wee Fish, Ewe, A Mare, Egrets, Moose, Panda, Hippo, Gnu, Deer!" ("We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.")
