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COLORS VERSUS SHAPES

Name: COLORS VERSUS SHAPES
Author: Mike Boldt
ISBN: 978-0-06-210303-1

by Mike Boldt ; illustrated by Mike Boldt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 26, 2014

Not nearly as much fun as the showdown between letters and numbers.

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Boldt (123 versus ABC, 2013) continues to mix things up; this time, colors and shapes audition to be the stars of a book.

Team 1 consists of colors—blobs with arms, legs and faces. They are invited to take the stage first, but they’re interrupted by Team 2—white anthropomorphized shapes with big attitudes: “Clearly we’re going to win this contest….So you may as well just skip those fellas.” Well, them’s fightin’ words. The colors begin to show off, mixing primaries to make secondaries (blue and yellow combine, and green is the result—but all three still exist separately, which may puzzle readers). Meanwhile, two triangles make a square, the only combination; from there, they simply add angles and sides. The yelling escalates until red and octagon accidently collide. Cooperation leads to a colorful, wordless spread that showcases colorful objects built from basic shapes, though not all of them are easily individuated (the three sections of an apple-tree trunk, for instance); Stella Blackstone’s Ship Shapes (2006) did a much better job with regard to combining shapes into scenes. In the end, the judges (the stars of 123 versus ABC) give colors a 10 and shapes an A+, and obviously, they are both the stars of this book. Boldt’s digital illustrations are just as colorful and zany as those in his previous book, but readers may have some trouble following the numerous, crowded speech bubbles.

Not nearly as much fun as the showdown between letters and numbers. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-06-210303-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: June 9, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
ELMORE THE CHRISTMAS MOOSE
by Dev Petty ; illustrated by Mike Boldt

- BOOK REVIEW
CANTALOUPE AND HONEYDO RIDE A BIKE
by Mike Boldt ; illustrated by Mike Boldt

- BOOK REVIEW
DON'T TRUST CATS
by Dev Petty ; illustrated by Mike Boldt

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 21, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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LOVE FROM THE CRAYONS

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 24, 2019

As ephemeral as a valentine.

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Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.

Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.

As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)