Purchase for children who need action while they read, but read along to ensure that they slow down to actually look at the...
This board book and its simultaneously publishing companion, Around the World, start with an intriguing and potentially useful premise, providing pre-readers with an indented track to trace their ways through the pictures.
If the goal is to train these very young children to “read” from left to right, the gimmick is a failure: the line doesn’t usually follow the conventions of reading English, nor is the rhyming text always parallel to the tracking line. For example, on one double-page spread, the line moves down the page, back to the left, then across and up the opposite page, to end in front of a car facing left. On the other hand, if the goal is to provide an activity so wiggly children will be content to spend time looking at each page, it might work. More likely the young reader will focus on the track and forget to look at the detailed but rather small illustrations done in the muted shades of retro letterpress. There is actually much to study and talk about on each page— different kinds of cars, houses, and hidden owl characters, plus some images not expected in a book for toddlers. (Can you find the sewer rat or UFO?) The “follow-the-trail” interaction seems to be an unnecessary gimmick and distraction.
Purchase for children who need action while they read, but read along to ensure that they slow down to actually look at the pictures. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0076-0
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday.
Animal parents declare their love for their offspring in alphabetical order.
Each page displays an enormous capital letter, one line of verse with the keyword capitalized, and a loving nonhuman parent gazing adoringly at their baby. “A is for Always. I always love you more. / B is for Butterfly kisses. It’s you that I adore.” While not named or labelled as such, the A is also for an alligator and its hatchling and B is for a butterfly and a butterfly child (not a caterpillar—biology is not the aim of this title) interacting in some way with the said letter. For E there are an elephant and a calf; U features a unicorn and foal; and X, keyed to the last letter of the animal’s name, corresponds to a fox and three pups. The final double-page spread shows all the featured creatures and their babies as the last line declares: “Baby, I love you from A to Z!” The verse is standard fare and appropriately sentimental. The art is cartoony-cute and populated by suitably loving critters on solid backgrounds. Hearts accent each scene, but the theme of the project is never in any doubt.
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-2095-6
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to.
This simplified version of Diesen and Hanna’s The Pout-Pout Fish (2008) is appropriate for babies and toddlers.
Brief, rhyming text tells the story of a sullen fish cheered up with a kiss. A little pink sea creature pokes his head out of a hole in the sea bottom to give the gloomy fish some advice: “Smile, Mr. Fish! / You look so down // With your glum-glum face / And your pout-pout frown.” He explains that there’s no reason to be worried, scared, sad or mad and concludes: “How about a smooch? / And a cheer-up wish? // Now you look happy: / What a smile, Mr. Fish!” Simple and sweet, this tale offers the lesson that sometimes, all that’s needed for a turnaround in mood is some cheer and encouragement to change our perspective. The clean, uncluttered illustrations are kept simple, except for the pout-pout fish’s features, which are delightfully expressive. Little ones will easily recognize and likely try to copy the sad, scared and angry looks that cross the fish’s face.
An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-374-37084-8
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
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