Despite some missteps, sharp-eyed readers will find absorbing word-recall practice here.
On a dozen spreads, jam-packed scenes depict words all beginning with the same letter.
Subsequent pages of clear print, with some pictures, provide parts of speech, simple pronunciation, and very brief definitions for most of the items and activities depicted. Despite the usually serviceable definitions, this book has several shortcomings as a dictionary. The target reader’s age is unclear: The word chord, as in both geometry and music, but a clam is a “shelled creature” rather than a “mollusk” (though mollusk appears elsewhere, as do vertebrates and invertebrate). The definitions of even and odd don’t mention numbers. The meaning for eclipse describes only a lunar eclipse. The primary definition of continue is to prolong, without interruption, not, as here, “to go on after something has stopped.” Free is labeled as both adjective and verb, but only the adjective meanings are given. And more. But brightly colored mosaiclike illustrations fit an astounding number of people, things, and amusing actions into one compact space: an airport terminal, a street, a classroom, a seaside, a park, a castle, a kitchen, a store, etc. Humans of various skin tones, and other creatures, busy themselves in these entertaining scenes. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Despite some missteps, sharp-eyed readers will find absorbing word-recall practice here. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781486727766
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Flowerpot Press
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
A mixed bag.
An alphabetical tour of emotions.
This British import mixes words that many young kids will know, such as brave, kind, and mad (the last defined in the American sense, as angry), with less-familiar ones such as overwhelmed and vulnerable. It even features at least one word that may be new to adults: “X is for Xenial….Xenial is being welcoming to strangers.” Compounding the difficulty here, the visual image of a Black kid dressed as a magician hugging a rabbit they’ve pulled out of a hat does not exactly illustrate xeniality (xenialness?). Other illustrations do a better job of helping readers understand the words being introduced. The illustrations feature racially diverse children and are usually paired in each double-page spread: “A is for Anxious. Anxious is feeling really worried about something. / B is for Brave. Brave is being nervous about something and doing it anyway.” On the A page, a brown-skinned kid cowers from the dragon that encircles their bed, as in a nightmare. Across the gutter on the B page, the ferociously scowling child confronts the now-intimidated monster. Kids will get an immediate sense of those two words. Animals, real and imaginary, often play a role in the pictures. The book will be best shared one on one or in very small groups, when children can really spend time examining the pictures and talking about their own impression of what is happening in each picture. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A mixed bag. (word list) (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-20519-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
There may be an audience for this—but not in any library, classroom, group, or, particularly considering the pointy piece,...
A very simple guide to (some) human anatomy, with scratch-off patches.
On sturdy board pages two cartoon children—one brown, one a sunburned pink—pose for cutaway views of select anatomical features. In most images certain parts, such as lungs and bladder on the “Organs” spread and both gluteus maximi on “Muscles,” are hidden beneath a black layer that can be removed with the flat end (or more slowly with the pointed one) of a wooden stylus housed in an attached bubble pack. With notable lack of consistency, the names of select organs or areas, with such child-centric additions as “A cut,” or “Poop,” are gathered in bulleted lists and/or placed as labels for arbitrarily chosen items in the pictures. It’s hard to envision younger readers getting more than momentary satisfaction from this, as they industriously scrape away and are invited to learn terms such as “Alveoli” and “Latissimus dorsi” that are, at best, minimally defined or described. Older ones in search of at least marginally systematic versions of the skeletal, sensory, nervous, and other (but not reproductive) systems will be even less satisfied. Even those alive to the extracurricular possibilities of a volume that contains, as one of the two warnings on the rear cover notes, a “functional sharp point,” will be disappointed.
There may be an audience for this—but not in any library, classroom, group, or, particularly considering the pointy piece, preschool setting. (Informational novelty. 5-7)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78603-323-9
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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