More game than substance.
A large-format board book with sliding, matching-game–style panels featuring things that move on land, sea, and by air.
This one is fodder for young readers who love everything on wheels. As in Babin’s Animals, illustrated by Julie Mercier (2018), this book includes a series of panels that allow for a matching game, wherein four sets of matching pairs are hidden behind sliding windows. The left-hand side of each double-page spread shows brightly-colored cartoon animals riding in or on the vehicles while the game is presented on the right-hand side. Each transportation set includes directives for ways to engage with the book (“Can you name and find all the vehicles that are yellow, red, or green?”), but they vary little from page to page and mostly follow the same predictable format. The “In the Sky” page features some unusual modes of transportation such as a hydroplane and paraglider, likely unfamiliar to younger readers (and not included in the matching game). The book provides opportunities to point to and name items, similar to a picture dictionary. It’s really less book and more game, which, while entertaining, does become repetitive for adults. It’s a good choice for travel and even for keeping little hands busy at a restaurant, because it is really something to play with rather than something to read.
More game than substance. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-2-40801-283-0
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Twirl/Chronicle
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The lack of real excitement will make these helpers fade from memory like sirens on a distant road.
Part emergency adventure, part reassurance that help is on the way—youngsters fascinated by vehicles with sirens will be attracted to this board book.
Straightforward, declarative text and fanciful, somewhat futuristic pictures describe “a big beautiful world, filled with awesome adventures.” The second spread previews the helpers and their vehicles with profile views of six types of vehicles against a clean white background. The final spread shows front views of the same six rescue vehicles. In between, spreads focus on three different emergencies. In a busy spread headlined “Uh-oh, an accident,” readers see a police car, an ambulance, and a tow truck, while a police helicopter hovers overhead. “Uh-oh, a storm!” shows the water-based versions of emergency vehicles against a rain-gray background. “Uh-oh, a fire!” focuses on firefighters, with police and EMTs playing supporting roles. All the vehicles are staffed by smiling animal characters reminiscent of Richard Scarry’s Busytown creatures but without the whimsy of those classics. The final text proclaims that “helpers…are the ones who save the world.” The wordy text and detailed pictures make this board book most suited for older toddlers intrigued by emergency vehicles, but the placid delivery is out of sync with the notion that the depicted world is in peril.
The lack of real excitement will make these helpers fade from memory like sirens on a distant road. (Board book. 3-4)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-0599-8
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Serviceable, reasonably toddler-friendly fare.
Denizens of the deep in diminutive 3-D displays.
Arranged in a seemingly arbitrary sequence, the 15 figures popping up, one per spread, in this small, square volume include some dolllike humans or human artifacts but are mostly very simply rendered sea animals sporting smiles and big eyes. All feature one- or two-word identifiers and hover above monochrome backgrounds enhanced, sometimes, with a simple nautical detail. The pop-ups, constructed largely from reverse folds, are designed as static compositions aside from a crab that waves its claws at viewers as the spread opens. Other than a similar but not identical boat and a subway train, the equally simple vehicles in the co-published Pop-Up Things That Go! roll on or fly over dry land. In both books, human figures are all white except for one of three firefighters and a child collecting a cone from the “ice cream van” in Things That Go! (which also places the driver of its bus on the British side).
Serviceable, reasonably toddler-friendly fare. (Pop-up picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0119-2
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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