The small size and detail-oriented pictures suit this sweet fabric bonbon to one-on-one sharing.
This diminutive board book of garden-themed nursery rhymes is illustrated with sewn fabric scenes.
Seven traditional nursery rhymes set in the garden are featured here, one to a spread. They range from well-known verses such as “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” and “Lavender Blue” to more obscure ones, like “Daffodil Song” and “I Had a Little Cherry Stone.” Beaton’s signature fabric illustrations are clearly meant to take center stage here. Each one is a scene carefully stitched and brought to life with small pieces of cloth and thread, lending them the old-fashioned charm of a sampler or quilt. Beaton’s style fits well with the traditional nursery-rhyme content, and adults will appreciate the creativity, skill and effort involved here. Little ones, on the other hand, may be less impressed by the illustrations—which are rather muted in comparison to the high-contrast lines and bold art that bring to life many of today’s board books—although they will certainly enjoy the rhythm and sounds of the selected verses. Beaton’s Animal Rhymes collects seven animal-related nursery rhymes with illustrations in the same distinctive style.
The small size and detail-oriented pictures suit this sweet fabric bonbon to one-on-one sharing. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: April 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-78285-081-6
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Leave the hopping to Peter Cottontail and sing the original song instead.
An Easter-themed board-book parody of the traditional nursery rhyme.
Unfortunately, this effort is just as sugary and uninspired as The Itsy Bitsy Snowman, offered by the same pair in 2015. A cheerful white bunny hops through a pastel world to distribute candy and treats for Easter but spills his baskets. A hedgehog, fox, mouse, and various birds come to the bunny’s rescue, retrieving the candy, helping to devise a distribution plan, and hiding the eggs. Then magically, they all fly off in a hot air balloon as the little animals in the village emerge to find the treats. Without any apparent purpose, the type changes color to highlight some words. For very young children every word is new, so highlighting “tiny tail” or “friends” makes no sense. Although the text is meant to be sung, the words don't quite fit the rhythm of the original song. Moreover, there are not clear motions to accompany the text; without the fingerplay movements, this book has none of the satisfying verve of the traditional version.
Leave the hopping to Peter Cottontail and sing the original song instead. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5621-0
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An acceptable and sturdy addition to the Easter basket for baby bunnies deemed too young to handle Dorothy Kunhardt's more...
Following on the successful Five Little Pumpkins (2003), Yaccarino teams with Rabe for bunnies.
The five pastel bunnies are cute enough, and the rhymes are accurate, if somewhat wordy for toddlers. But without a clear one-to-one relationship between the words and the pictures, it is not always clear which bunny is speaking and what is being counted. The bunnies, identified as first, second, and so on, hop around the pages instead of staying in a consistent order as the rhyme implies. Naming them by color might have been a better choice, but that would mean abandoning the finger-play counting-rhyme formula. The children who show up to hunt the eggs are a multicultural cast of cartoonish figures with those in the background drawn as blue and green silhouettes. Though the text on the back cover invites children to count the eggs, there is no hint as to how many eggs they should find. Neither the verse nor the pictures provide counting assistance. The youngest children will not care about any of this; they will be content to point out the different colors of the bunnies and the patterns on the eggs.
An acceptable and sturdy addition to the Easter basket for baby bunnies deemed too young to handle Dorothy Kunhardt's more satisfying but fragile classic, Pat the Bunny. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-225339-2
Page Count: 16
Publisher: HarperFestival
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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