A sweet encouragement to play.
The newest title in the Baby Unplugged series by pediatrician Hutton (Book, 2012, etc.) takes a toddler-friendly approach to its examination of the properties and virtues of water.
In keeping with the author’s basic philosophy of encouraging active play and avoiding screen time before the age of 3, this title celebrates the rhythms of language while encouraging little ones to examine and explore the simple wonders of their world. Brief, rhyming verses, most of which scan well and read smoothly, convey a lot of information without coming across as too teacher-y or tedious: “Drop from clouds. Drip from sink. / Water to play. Water to drink. // Water is noisy. Water is quiet. / Water swirls and sprinkles—try it!” The computer-generated art creates a cheery, cartoon world filled with patterns, textures and children whose facial features are rendered with only black lines and circles. While the whimsical illustrations aren’t a perfect match for the text’s celebration of water—calling to mind as they do the plugged-in world of computers and television more than the wild world of nature—their joyful spirit is right on target.
A sweet encouragement to play. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-936669-20-2
Page Count: 14
Publisher: blue manatee press
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Is this a nature book? Not really. But with beautiful young faces respecting living creatures, it is a great choice for...
With expressions of wonder and delight, little toddlers explore nature in its tiniest forms, seeing critters and flowers with the curiosity of new eyes.
McPike and Barton have created a companion book to their comforting bedtime read-aloud, Little Sleepyhead (2015). This outing repeats the same rhythmic couplets, bringing together the simplest of flora and fauna with a racially diverse group of toddlers. Barton uses digitized pencil sketches to capture the wide-eyed, breath-holding feeling of seeing a caterpillar for the first time. The children’s delight in the snails, bluebirds, and bunnies is a gentle introduction to quietly observing nature. "Little bitty chipmunks, chattering all the day / Little bitty ladybug always comes to play." (Here a ladybug crawls across a giggling toddler’s forehead.) The illustrations are open and breezy with white space, and the spare text printed in different colors keeps the focus simple. While the repeated phrase of "little bitty" provides a consistent thread from beginning to end, the uniqueness of every child is clear. Yet even the wide range of skin tones and hairstyles is secondary to the universal feeling of wonder.
Is this a nature book? Not really. But with beautiful young faces respecting living creatures, it is a great choice for toddler libraries. (Picture book. 1-3)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17255-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Put on those gardening gloves; the fruits of this labor beckon.
A young girl watches her garden grow.
Though she's a bit older than the typical board-book audience, her self-reliance makes her an appealing character for toddlers struggling to assert their independence. The strategic use of sturdy flaps provides both peekaboo fun and structure to the storyline. “Yellow daisy. / Red rose. / A bud blooms. / [lift flap] A flower grows.” Some of the interactive elements clearly connect objects to one another (shovel, pail), while other pairings review the progress of the blossoming outdoors. The child enjoys the results of her hard work (smelling a flower has never been so sweet) and waters her lush plants with her pint-sized watering can. Varied vocabulary extends the text. “Harvest carrots / . . . squash and peas. / [lift flap] Pollinated by the bees.” Perhaps due to their having been printed on recycled paper with soy inks, the matte sides of the flaps tend to be darker than the rest, which are glossy.
Put on those gardening gloves; the fruits of this labor beckon. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-93041-5
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
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