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100 FIRST WORDS

The engaging images and familiar terms presented will appeal to little ones and help them to add to their quickly expanding...

This oversized lift-the-flap word book presents 100 terms that toddlers can relate to.

Each large page is devoted to a category central to a toddler’s life: toys, party time, bed and bath, clothes, fruit and vegetables, food, at the zoo, at the beach, on the farm, pets, out and about, and things that go. The individual words presented within each category are items that youngsters will be familiar with and interested by. The toy category, for instance, features a train, a ball, a block, a robot, rings, paint and paintbrushes, and a xylophone. Every page consists of a set of square and rectangular flaps bearing images—many of which incorporate photographs of babies and toddlers, most Caucasian—on bright, bold backgrounds. When the flaps are lifted, the word is revealed, along with another picture that represents it. It’s not for babies and toddlers to explore on their own—the book is hefty, and the flaps are difficult to grasp and manipulate (they lift in different directions)—but suitable for guided exploration. A companion volume, 100 First Animals (978-1-58925-608-8), follows the same format, featuring these categories: pets, farm, safari, sea, woods, jungle, snow, rivers and lakes, bugs, desert, birds and nighttime.

The engaging images and familiar terms presented will appeal to little ones and help them to add to their quickly expanding vocabularies. (Board book. 1-3)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-58925-607-1

Page Count: 12

Publisher: Tiger Tales

Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014

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SMILE, POUT-POUT FISH

An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to.

This simplified version of Diesen and Hanna’s The Pout-Pout Fish (2008) is appropriate for babies and toddlers.

Brief, rhyming text tells the story of a sullen fish cheered up with a kiss. A little pink sea creature pokes his head out of a hole in the sea bottom to give the gloomy fish some advice: “Smile, Mr. Fish! / You look so down // With your glum-glum face / And your pout-pout frown.” He explains that there’s no reason to be worried, scared, sad or mad and concludes: “How about a smooch? / And a cheer-up wish? // Now you look happy: / What a smile, Mr. Fish!” Simple and sweet, this tale offers the lesson that sometimes, all that’s needed for a turnaround in mood is some cheer and encouragement to change our perspective. The clean, uncluttered illustrations are kept simple, except for the pout-pout fish’s features, which are delightfully expressive. Little ones will easily recognize and likely try to copy the sad, scared and angry looks that cross the fish’s face.

An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to. (Board book. 1-3)

Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-374-37084-8

Page Count: 12

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014

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ALL ABOUT ME

From the Look & Learn series

Clear nonfiction for the very young is hard to come by, and it appears that the Look & Learn series may finally be on...

An exploration of the human body through colorful photos.

Every other double-page spread labels the individual parts on one major area: head, torso, back, arm and leg. Ethnically diverse boy-girl pairs serve as models as arrows point to specific features and captions float nearby. While the book usefully mentions rarely depicted body parts, such as eyebrow, armpit and shin, some of the directional arrows are unclear. The arrow pointing at a girl’s shoulder hits her in the upper arm, and the belly button is hard is distinguish from the stomach (both are concealed by shirts). Facts about the human body (“Guess what? You have tiny hairs in your nose that keep out dirt”) appear on alternating spreads along with photos of kids in action. Baby Animals, another title in the Look & Learn series, uses an identical format to introduce readers to seal pups, leopard cubs, elephant calves, ducklings and tadpoles. In both titles, the final spread offers a review of the information and encourages readers to match baby animals to their parents or find body parts on a photo of kids jumping on a trampoline.

Clear nonfiction for the very young is hard to come by, and it appears that the Look & Learn series may finally be on the right track despite earlier titles that were much too conceptual for the audience. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)

Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-4263-1483-4

Page Count: 24

Publisher: National Geographic

Review Posted Online: April 29, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014

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