Yet another spark for young imaginations.
Similar to Hilb’s Wiggle Giggle Tickle Train (with co-author Sharon Jennings and photographer Marcela Cabezas Hilb, 2009), this imaginative romp shows kids using nature to fuel their creative play through all the seasons of the year.
Left-hand pages feature beautiful stock photos of (mostly) nature that encompass the four seasons—a blossoming tree, rainfall, a growing pumpkin and a snowplow at work are among the 13. Right-hand pages showcase Hilb’s watercolors of children patterning their play after nature. A photo of a frog appears opposite two children jumping over a log, a rainbow prompts a coloring session and some geese flying overhead lead the children to use toy horns to copy their calls. But it is the addition of the Shapiros’ rollicking verses that truly make this an all-around enjoyable collaboration. The waterfall spread is a standout, the children pouring water from a large bucket into a smaller one on the ground: “Slosh from the big one / into the small. / Whooshing and sloshing—your own waterfall. / SPLASH!” Rhythm and rhyme are spot-on, and the bouncy verses and onomatopoetic words are sure to catch and hold listeners’ attention. The combination of rhyme, simple vocabulary, bright colors, white backgrounds and simple details suits this beautifully for the preschool set. Hilb’s trademark style is definitely in evidence here—the pages are populated by adorable rosy-cheeked and ethnically diverse children engaged in the business of play.
Yet another spark for young imaginations. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-386-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable.
You think you know shapes? Animals? Blend them together, and you might see them both a little differently!
What a mischievous twist on a concept book! With wordplay and a few groan-inducing puns, Neal creates connections among animals and shapes that are both unexpected and so seemingly obvious that readers might wonder why they didn’t see them all along. Of course, a “lazy turtle” meeting an oval would create the side-splitting combo of a “SLOW-VAL.” A dramatic page turn transforms a deeply saturated, clean-lined green oval by superimposing a head and turtle shell atop, with watery blue ripples completing the illusion. Minimal backgrounds and sketchy, impressionistic detailing keep the focus right on the zany animals. Beginning with simple shapes, the geometric forms become more complicated as the book advances, taking readers from a “soaring bird” that meets a triangle to become a “FLY-ANGLE” to a “sleepy lion” nonagon “YAWN-AGON.” Its companion text, Animal Colors, delves into color theory, this time creating entirely hybrid animals, such as the “GREEN WHION” with maned head and whale’s tail made from a “blue whale and a yellow lion.” It’s a compelling way to visualize color mixing, and like Animal Shapes, it’s got verve. Who doesn’t want to shout out that a yellow kangaroo/green moose blend is a “CHARTREUSE KANGAMOOSE”?
Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0534-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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