Toddlers ready for simple stories will find better choices among regular picture books.
This very busy board book seems to want to be a toy.
Sturdy, wipeable board pages and layered cutouts make a dense, leafy forest habitat for an elephant preparing for his birthday party. The illustrations give a good sense of the rain forest, but the plants’ multiple shades of brown, green, and orange disguise the other animals almost too completely. Finding the gazelle, monkey, and parrot hiding in the greenery could be a challenge for toddlers who do not yet know what to look for. Two extra-thick board-over-foam interior pages provide a nesting place for an elephant cutout that acts as a sort of one-piece puzzle designed for children to play with as they read; little ones will likely grab the elephant and not want to let it go. Young children most in need of board books may not sit still for the somewhat wordy story. Elephant's repeated question, “Do you know that today is an important day?” could serve as a refrain, but slight rewording each time he asks makes it difficult for toddlers to anticipate the question and join in. Companion title Here Comes Leo Lion has many of the same problems, plus a rather heavy-handed lesson, in which Lion learns, rather quickly, that boasting about his wildness will not win him friends.
Toddlers ready for simple stories will find better choices among regular picture books. (Board book.1-3)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4549-1581-2
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character.
One of Boynton's signature characters celebrates Halloween.
It's Halloween time, and Pookie the pig is delighted. Mom helps the little porker pick out the perfect Halloween costume, a process that spans the entire board book. Using an abcb rhyme scheme, Boynton dresses Pookie in a series of cheerful costumes, including a dragon, a bunny, and even a caped superhero. Pookie eventually settles on the holiday classic, a ghost, by way of a bedsheet. Boynton sprinkles in amusing asides to her stanzas as Pookie offers costume commentary ("It's itchy"; "It's hot"; "I feel silly"). Little readers will enjoy the notion of transforming themselves with their own Halloween costumes while reading this book, and a few parents may get some ideas as well. Boynton's clean, sharp illustrations are as good as ever. This is Pookie's first holiday title, but readers will surely welcome more.
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51233-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver.
The farmyard's chickens experience Halloween.
A round, full moon shines in the sky, and the chickens of Boynton's barnyard are feeling “nervous.” Pumpkins shine “with flickering eyes,” witches and wizards wander the pastures, and one chicken has seen “a mouse of enormous size.” It’s Halloween night, and readers will delight as the chickens huddle together and try to figure out what's going on. All ends well, of course, and in Boynton's trademark silly style. (It’s really quite remarkable how her ranks of white, yellow-beaked chickens evoke rows of candy corn.) At this point parents and children know what they're in for when they pick up a book by the prolific author, and she doesn't disappoint here. The chickens are silly, the pigs are cute, and the coloring and illustrations evoke a warmth that little ones wary of Halloween will appreciate. For children leery of the ghouls and goblins lurking in the holiday's iconography, this is a perfect antidote, emphasizing all the fun Halloween has to offer.
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7611-9300-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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