CARLO LIKES READING

In Carlo the giraffe’s world, everything has a label, so reading is a constant, continuing activity. After “reading” his bedroom (“curtain,” “clock,” “pillow,” “Carlo’s slippers”), Carlo reads the kitchen, his father (“tail,” “bottom,” “leg,” “leg,” “leg,” “leg”), is read to by his mother, then goes out to read to the cat, a friend, a baby, and anyone else who will hold still. To go with the large-type text, Spanyol creates very simple, Lucy Cousins–type pictures, in which nearly every item literally has an attached label—even bubbles, crumbs, and a “squished tomato.” Fittingly, Carlo ends up at an invitingly disheveled library (“little book,” “big book,” “computer,” “librarian”). Though Spanyol mislabels a flying insect “daddy longlegs,” and an extra, unlabeled spread seems to have been tacked on just to fill out the page count—or to show how well-rounded he is—this debut is bright, well-conceived, and infectiously enthusiastic. (Picture book. 4-6)