Plenty of opportunity for adult-baby interaction and early-literacy singing skills
Thirteen nursery songs, with hand motions included, to share with young ones.
Many of the songs are classics, a few more obscure, but each is delightfully illustrated with Stoop’s cozy warmth. “Down by the Station” features a bunny-faced locomotive, with rabbit engineer (paw firmly ready to pull the whistle), toting a train full of animal friends. The “Itsy-Bitsy Spider” makes its perilous journey as per usual, but Stoop’s elongated raindrops have hints of collaged text hidden in their shine. Other songs include “Pat-a-Cake” (with four-layer cake, topped with the letter “B”), “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” and “Polly Put the Kettle On.” The majority of the children featured have the same stark white skin as Stoop’s previous heroine, Red Knit Cap Girl (2012), though hair color and styles differ. The only variety can be found on the cover image (repeated on the rear endpapers) and in one interior spread. Stoop’s plywood canvas, with wood grain peeking through, echoes the aged, deep tradition of the songs, while the hazy shades of blues, greens, and oranges are like a snug hug.
Plenty of opportunity for adult-baby interaction and early-literacy singing skills . (Picture book. 1-4)Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9904-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Leave the hopping to Peter Cottontail and sing the original song instead.
An Easter-themed board-book parody of the traditional nursery rhyme.
Unfortunately, this effort is just as sugary and uninspired as The Itsy Bitsy Snowman, offered by the same pair in 2015. A cheerful white bunny hops through a pastel world to distribute candy and treats for Easter but spills his baskets. A hedgehog, fox, mouse, and various birds come to the bunny’s rescue, retrieving the candy, helping to devise a distribution plan, and hiding the eggs. Then magically, they all fly off in a hot air balloon as the little animals in the village emerge to find the treats. Without any apparent purpose, the type changes color to highlight some words. For very young children every word is new, so highlighting “tiny tail” or “friends” makes no sense. Although the text is meant to be sung, the words don't quite fit the rhythm of the original song. Moreover, there are not clear motions to accompany the text; without the fingerplay movements, this book has none of the satisfying verve of the traditional version.
Leave the hopping to Peter Cottontail and sing the original song instead. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5621-0
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An acceptable and sturdy addition to the Easter basket for baby bunnies deemed too young to handle Dorothy Kunhardt's more...
Following on the successful Five Little Pumpkins (2003), Yaccarino teams with Rabe for bunnies.
The five pastel bunnies are cute enough, and the rhymes are accurate, if somewhat wordy for toddlers. But without a clear one-to-one relationship between the words and the pictures, it is not always clear which bunny is speaking and what is being counted. The bunnies, identified as first, second, and so on, hop around the pages instead of staying in a consistent order as the rhyme implies. Naming them by color might have been a better choice, but that would mean abandoning the finger-play counting-rhyme formula. The children who show up to hunt the eggs are a multicultural cast of cartoonish figures with those in the background drawn as blue and green silhouettes. Though the text on the back cover invites children to count the eggs, there is no hint as to how many eggs they should find. Neither the verse nor the pictures provide counting assistance. The youngest children will not care about any of this; they will be content to point out the different colors of the bunnies and the patterns on the eggs.
An acceptable and sturdy addition to the Easter basket for baby bunnies deemed too young to handle Dorothy Kunhardt's more satisfying but fragile classic, Pat the Bunny. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-225339-2
Page Count: 16
Publisher: HarperFestival
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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