SAME SAME

Giving preschoolers and even aging toddlers food for thought, on each page Slaughter and Jocelyn group three items—all rendered as bright, very simple graphic images in primary colors plus black, white and green—that share a common characteristic: “round things,” “things that make music,” “things that fly.” To create links between groups, each illustrated group includes one member that reappears on the subsequent spread—a tambourine is a “round thing” and a “thing that makes music,” a snake is both a “striped thing” and a “long thing” and so on. Unlike the title, which sounds like some sort of pidgin, Jocelyn’s terse captions are in plain language; an apple and the Earth are “round things,” a dog, an elephant and a chair are “things with four legs.” In most cases these are probably superfluous, but at least take away any guesswork. An inviting way of introducing connections and commonalities. (Picture book. 2-4)